A Rose by Any Other Name

Shakespeare had Juliet say “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Important point there, things are what they are regardless of what we call them. Living in these UberPC times, that is a fact that can be easily forgotten. If we call a garbage man a sanitation engineer, he still picks up garbage, although in my neighborhood he is actually a truck driver and lift operator. No one actually touches my garbage can now but me. I bring up this subject of name versus reality because I see it as the starting point of what I perceive to be a bigger problem. At first we started calling things by different names as if that made them better or different. I believe this lead us to taking a valid concept of self improvement, the talking about things we intend to do as if they had already been done, and bastardizing it.

Don’t get me wrong. I think that positive affirmation in an effective self-improvement tool. I personally think it has worked for me in the past. But, it is only a tool. No hammer ever built a house unless some carpenter swung it. No ratchet ever tightened a bolt unless some mechanic turned it. A tool helps us accomplish a task. Somewhere along the way, that fact seems to have been lost. Now, many people apparently seem to think that all you have to do is say something to make it so. I suppose in their mind that works. I have heard that if you tell a lie long enough you begin to believe it. My point is that if you are a member of a football team that does not practice well, does not play well and does not win any games, it is silly to stand on the sideline and yell we are number one. It is even sillier to actually believe that you ARE number one. Saying it doesn’t make it so, working hard to accomplish it makes it so.

Another fact that we seem to have lost sight of is that doing it one time only makes it so that one time. Just because you were on top in the past, does not make you a winner today. Today as a nation, we spend a lot of time basking in the glory of our past deeds. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t hear someone bragging about how great we are. I think that the time for basking and bragging is over. We need to quit talking about how great we are and take a long hard look at what we have become. A popular challenge for someone who is resting on their laurels is “Yeah, but what have you done for me lately?” I think it is appropriate for us to ask ourselves the similar question, “what have we done lately?”