Thoughts...

h//t Steve for this one... Originally from HERE.

There’s something I was thinking about the other day that’s both sad and speaks to how resilient we men are.

And that is that nobody really teaches men how to do most of the things we end up doing anymore. You just end up doing them.

Something breaks. You figure it out.

Something needs to be built. You figure it out.

Something goes wrong. You figure it out.

Half the time you’ve never done it before.

No training. No instructions. Maybe a quick video.

Maybe a guess.

Maybe just standing there staring at it like “alright… let’s see what happens.”

And somehow you make it work.

It’s not always perfect. Often not pretty. But it works.

And that’s the part people don’t really think about. How what a lot of what men do every day is learned on the fly.

Our dads who used to be able to teach us have largely been removed from our lives so we have no choice but to learn by trial and error.

Mostly error at first. Then slowly… less error.

Until one day you’re the guy someone else comes to.

“Hey how do you fix this? Hey can you help with that?”

And now you’re giving advice on something you barely understood yourself not that long ago.

That’s how it often happens. You struggle through it then suddenly you’re the one people rely on.

And then it becomes and expectation. One that doesn’t stop.

Different problem same process. Figure it out.

Not “do you know how?” But “can you handle it?”

And most of the time the answer is yes, even if you don’t know it yet.

Because figuring it out is the skill.

Not having all the answers… Just being willing to take something on and work your way through it until it’s done. That’s the difference.

And most guys don’t even think twice about it… They just keep doing it over and over like it’s normal.

Because for us it is.

This was the way us old farts were raised. We didn’t live in a ‘disposable’ world, where you went out and bought new everytime something broke.

Your dad, or uncle, or grandfather took you out to the garage and taught you how to ‘fix’ the problem.

Today, that doesn’t happen nearly as much. Chatting with a friend my age from the show cars days, he mentioned he’s now retired, not by choice, with a transplant. His greatest joy is getting his son and grand into the garage to help him build a hotrod 32 Ford.

But how many parents today have time or a garage? Or the knowledge to fix something? Those who work in the service industry are probably the only ones...

Or how many kids want to learn? They’d rather play on their phones/computers than learn something that gets their hands dirty.

What say you???