DECISION MAKING BEHIND THE CURTAIN

Decision making used to be a coin flip.

To be, or not to be; go, or no go.

Were those simpler days, or just poor memories?

Social media says hold my beer.

Today we can ask how to do anything and find videos explaining the process.

At the same time we can read reviews that say nothing is what it seems.

It’s the sort of research that creates more doubt than necessary.

Is this a new trend to gain more satisfaction?

 

When I’m watchin’ my TV
And a man comes on and tells me
How white my shirts can be
But he can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke
The same cigarettes as me

 

Back when men were men and everyone else had to take a back seat, decision making was relegated to smokey backrooms where king-makers worked out a deal.

Today they work out their deals on twitter, or create a smoke screen.

They leave it to the rest of us to figure out the difference between a deal and a smoke screen.

When did we all get smart enough to know the difference?

 

It Takes Practice

You’ve heard a song, or seen a band, and the guitar player is your focus.

He’s unbelievable, on fire with God-given talent you’ll never have.

You know their gear, what brands they favor, which strings they use.

You know all about their pedals, their picks, and the manicure routine.

They are the most incredible musician you’ve ever heard, ever expect to hear.

You read an interview in a magazine where the news guy asks for the secret this guitar player uses.

Did he sell his soul to the devil?

No, he practices.

But your dexterity, your reach.

It takes practice.

How do you imagine the songs you play before you play them.

I practice.

Why practice from the great Pablo Casals:

In 1957 at the age of 80 Casals was the subject of a movie short, A Day in the Life of Pablo Casals. The movie’s director Robert Snyder asked Casals, “why he continues to practice four and five hours a day.” Casals answered: “Because I think I am making progress.”

If you practice doing something, anything, you’ll get better.

It won’t make you the leader of the band, but it might.

 

Practice Better

One thing you can be sure of when you start something new: failure.

Take a slack-line for example. Some experts say never use the balance line.

Get up there and learn to stand on your own.

Don’t be frightened of falling, because you will fall off.

To which I say, “Bullshit. I’m hanging of for dear life.”

This is part of decision making that includes training wheels on beginner bikes.

I remember the bike, but not the training wheels, when I was five or six.

At sixty-nine I don’t ride a bike very often, but if I did it wouldn’t have trainers.

Will I ever be able to walk the walk? I will if I practice.

Besides, the slack line was just a warm-up for bigger things.

Call it a Practice Pole.

Practice for what? Practice for this:

What’s your faithful blogger doing on the last hottest day of the year?

Staking my claim as level on the level with level posts and rails on a new fence. 

 

Decision Making Practice 

Just because you load up your plate doesn’t mean you need to eat it all at once.

The key is making progress through mistakes because you’ll make mistakes.

Effective practice lessens the mistakes.

What that means is practice right and you won’t make the same mistakes over and over.

Welcome to making new mistakes.

If you are easily embarrassed, practice in private, then go public.

In fence building with kids that means nothing more than gaining confidence and momentum headed for a commonly understood goal.

It’s not a jackass session where everyone gets to complain about things they don’t understand.

Where does that happen?