Doing It On My Own

Nov 12

Nobody is born with the ability to do everything. Somehow we have to learn things. Even when we are talented at something, we still need to actually learn it before our talent can manifest itself.

When I was learning how to drive a manual transmission, I got to go out with other people as I learned the basics of how it worked. But trying things out every couple of weeks could only get me so far. It was only when I got my own vehicle and had the chance to go out by myself that I started to work things out. Sure I failed. Sometimes miserably so. I can still remember some of those violent stalls where it felt as if the automobile body was going to separate from the wheels. But eventually it came together.

I’ve learned that while it’s easy to dictate (or be dictated to), it’s much better to give people the opportunity to shine. In other words, teaching a man to fish means sometimes the man doesn’t catch a thing. But he will.

Or…he’ll starve. In which case, I don’t know because the illustration doesn’t really cover that scenario.