Do it Yourself

Here I was thinking that my work was done. As my son would say, good one Dad. Actually I’m pretty sure he gets that line from me, but he has taken it and made it his own. Something I took from my dad is the notion that if you want a job done right, you’d better damn well do it yourself without relying on someone else to do it for you. Like most advice and knowledge I’ve picked up over the years from my pops, this sentiment is right on the money.

So I was thinking that now that my boy is in high school that I can basically retire from coaching and just sit back and let the paid professionals do the work. I can sit back and just be the dad in the stands, secure in my knowledge that he will get the proper training and guidance from his coaches. Good one. Which is not to say that he doesn’t get and won’t receive some good coaching, who knows maybe even excellent coaching once he rises through the ranks to the varsity levels. It is also not to say that I will become one of those vain glorious parents whose every move is calculated to gain advantage for his son regardless of how that might effect the team, and believe me, as a long time participant in coaching youth sports, I have run across more of those types than I care to remember. I won’t be emailing the coach with suggestions of what type of zone defense to play, well that’s a bad example because zone defenses are for pansies, but you get the point.

What I will be doing however is continuing to work individually with my son Jake on his game, on his physical conditioning, on his fundamental skills, and on his mental approach to the game, which are all the things that good coaches do with their players, and having coached youth and high school sports for over a decade are areas in which I have a good deal of experience. Because if I want my boy to reach his full potential, then I need to step up as a dad and bring what I can to the table in order to help him get there. It just so happens that he is a ballplayer so what he is pursuing is right up my alley. Lucky for him that he doesn’t want to be an auto mechanic, a pool guy, or anyone that works with tools, because he’d pretty much be on his own then.

The bigger picture here is that if we want things done, we need to step up and make them happen. I believe that as individuals and as a society, we are too reliant on others to get the job done on our behalf. It should be noted here that whenever I use the term we I am certainly including myself, I am certainly not immune to the weaknesses that I often rail against, something I just wanted to throw in there lest anyone think I am trying to portray myself as some high and mighty sage sitting on my perch and dictating to others what they should be doing.

We rely on our government way too much. I’ve recently read some quotes by noted Libertarian and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul to the effect that we have become overly reliant on our government to come to our rescue, and as a result we have given over enormous powers to said government to act on our behalf. The problem is that once you become dependent on someone or something, by definition you lose your independence, and with it your freedom and your sense of accountability. One need look no further than the current political climate to see the impact of this type of welfare mentality. We want the government to bail out our industries, to cut us welfare checks in the form of tax rebate stimulus, which sound a lot better than calling it what it really is.

We want our new president to wave his magic wand and miraculously make all of our problems disappear overnight, or at least by the spring. Certainly government has a responsibility to accomplish certain tasks that we are not equipped to handle on our own, such as building roads and providing for police protection and a military to protect our national interests and security. But the founders of our republic would do the old turn in their graves if they came back today and watched just a few minutes of CNN or read the New York Times and learned about 850 billion dollar bailouts, wars being fought with borrowed money, and a 10 trillion dollar national debt. They would be appalled at how centralized our system has become, and by how much power we the people have handed over to our government.

It’s not just the government that we expect to offer up the magic elixir that makes all of our troubles disappear, we have this reliance on others in many other facets of our lives as well. We expect the public education system to truly educate our kids for example. While the schools have a role to play, I’m here to tell you that if you as a parent are relying on lowly paid public servants to enlighten your children you are in for disappointment. Some teachers are excellent, some have no business being in the classroom but are protected by tenure and teacher’s unions that resist any sort of accountability for their members, but most are simply mediocre, just doing what they need to do to get through the day and the school year until summer vacation. If you want your kids to be truly educated, that needs to happen in the home, with discussions and debates and reading books. A parent should be his child’s own personal tutor, and the schools are there to supplement this instruction.

We expect other people to mow our lawns, clean our pools, and wash our cars. Not that this suggests some moral failing on our part, many of these types of services are a convenience and a luxury that those of us who can afford it enjoy, in our busy lives these are valuable time savers. Other services are more necessary, like going to a mechanic to get your car fixed, but we have become much less inclined in our modern age to do it ourselves. We even now rely on GPS systems to tell us how to get around, and cars that park themselves. Again, not the end of western civilization here, but another indicator that are losing our sense of self-reliance, and as a former pizza guy, you don’t even want to get me started on GPS devices, to me that’s even worse than playing a zone defense.

We scour the vast self-help sections of the book stores looking for someone else to unlock the secrets to success, when often the keys to the locks are within us all the time if only we would spend more time in self-reflection and consideration of what we can do for ourselves to make our lives richer and more fulfilling. We watch Dr. Phil and Suze Orman for advice on how to manage our affairs, but most of this is simply common sense, the tricky part is to actually apply these principles to our lives on a consistent basis. We search for the latest trendy diets and weight-loss miracles, when the key to good health and weight maintenance is the same as it’s always been, eat healthy low fat foods, plenty of fruits, veggies, whole grains, lean meats, and exercise regularly with intensity. There, I just wrote a how to get and stay fit self-help book in a few sentences, and saved you the trip to Barnes and Noble and $24.95 to boot.

Doing the job right is an old-school value, and doing things yourself is the best way to ensure that the job gets done the way it needs to be. Self-reliance is one of the original American values, from the image of the independent minded colonists who settled the nation in the 17th and 18th centuries, to the cowboys and pioneers who expanded our territory in the 19th century, to the self-made captains of industry that built our modern 20th century economy, to the start-up entrepreneurs of the modern era, rugged individuality is a truly American archetype, and one that serves us well. It is something that should be valued highly, encouraged by government policy, and practiced by all of us as often and as thoroughly as we can. A nation of strong individuals, free to pursue their dreams and confident in their ability to reach their goals is the best kind of nation to live in, and really strikes at the heart of what our republic is supposed to be all about.