“It does not take much to make us realize what fools we are, but the little it takes is long in coming.”
– Flannery O’Connor
“My life didn’t turn out like I expected.”
– Roy Hobbs in the movie “The Natural”
We have lived in our house for about twenty-seven years. We have an island in the kitchen. It had no electrical outlets, which is now a code requirement but apparently wasn’t when our house was built many years ago. Janice has always wanted two of those. Well, I thought after twenty-seven years shouldn’t she be entitled to a couple of electrical outlets? I mean, how much could this cost? But then a funny thing happened to us – to Janice and to me. It was the slippery slope of “scope creep”. Scope creep is the phenomenon that allows projects to grow and grow because the extra work would be good and makes sense. I have battled scope creep in public works construction projects and other undertakings my whole life and I hope that I am not being too immodest if I say that I think I did a pretty good job in doing so. You may or may not have heard the “scope creep” term, but here is a real-world example of how it how it goes.
If we were going to be working with the center island wouldn’t now be the time to put in a granite or quartz countertop? That makes sense. And you know one would never have a different countertop on the island than what is adjacent to the rest of the cupboards. So, we better include those too. And really there are some things that really should be changed on the cabinets and they are SO dark. We really should modernize them or replace them with more-modern lighter colors. That makes sense. Oh, we would never want to keep that old backsplash. And you know the ceramic tile floor that we have in the kitchen has some cracked tiles. They would look tacky with new cabinets. And isn’t that new vinyl plank that we saw at Home Depot nice? We have the same ceramic tile in the hall, the powder room and the “mud room”. You wouldn’t want different flooring in those areas, would you? That makes sense. And with these improvements, are we going to keep those old appliances? (They really weren’t ALL that old but…..) And if we are replacing the floor in the powder room wouldn’t now be the time to replace the vanity top and the mirror in there? That makes sense. And on and on it went – the electrical outlet project ended up involving seven rooms and costing somewhere around $44,000. But it all made sense!!
Given the self-pride that I had in my ability to contain scope creep, how in the heck did all of this happen? Setting the humorous parts of the project aside, which many times resembled the movie “Money Pit”, this episode reinforced something I am learning about myself. I don’t know as much as I used to. Or maybe a better way to say it is that I am not as confident about things as I used to be. Or maybe what I thought I knew, I didn’t really know. Or maybe I was wrong before. Or I am not so sure that things are the way that I thought they were when I was younger and smarter. What the heck?!?!?!
Is this just a part of growing old? I certainly see things in a different way these days. I find myself being a lot more tolerant and a lot less judgmental. Does that mean I am becoming WISER or WEAKER? This question dogs me a lot in trying to understand our present political climate. But it goes beyond that for me, to virtually all areas of my life. And while it is now easier for me to own up to the fact that a lot of times I just don’t know what is best, I sometimes feel guilty about that and feel that I should be of more value to those who look to me for guidance. Shouldn’t I know what to do and how things are? What good is a supposed wise elder if all he tells you is that there are two (or more) ways of looking at every situation and that he is not so sure what the right path is?
I often ask myself how I came to be this way. I think part of what has happened is that when you are young, you are at the beginning of everything and you are certain of how the end will turn out even though you haven’t been there yet. At this age we are confident we know how things work. A wise elder once told me I was too dumb to be scared!! But now that I am old, I have seen a lot of those things that were beginning, come to their end. And as Roy Hobbs said, “My life didn’t turn out like I expected”. Maybe I didn’t REALLY know how things work and maybe I don’t know now. I HAVE learned that few things ever turn out to be as good as we hope or as bad as we fear. When we are young, most of us think we are bullet-proof and we are confident of our abilities. At this age I have taken quite a few of those bullets – and they HURT!! I also found that I wasn’t quite as capable as I thought.
Well, what can I say? I certainly don’t want to dampen the enthusiasm of youth. A lot of times that enthusiasm and courage overcomes what is lacking in knowledge. I am NOT criticizing young people. We NEED their drive and their willingness to ignore the potential problems, or at least to forge ahead without knowing what those challenges will be. On the other hand, I am finding that it is easier for me these days to live with what I have done and what I have failed to do, and to live with what I know and what I don’t. Weak or wise, I am kind of OK with where I am.
Ha. The beat goes on. Rand
Thanks, Craig! Another thought-provoking post. Bumblebees are physically unable to fly, but they don’t know that so they fly anyway. When we are young, we are bumblebees. We don’t know what we can’t do, so we do it anyway. You are right, as we age we learn some of those things we can’t do and they add up. Maybe what we need to do is acknowledge them, but focus more on what we do know and what we can do.
You hit it on the head with this: “… few things ever turn out to be as good as we hope or as bad as we fear.” It’s easy to forget that in the midst of excitement or worry.