Mr. Fix-It and I were with a group of folks recently when somebody made the comment:
“I don’t see what is the point of keeping a bunch of old stuff around. It’s all in the past anyway. Get rid of it. Put something new there. Besides — who cares?”
When my fingernails stopped curling, I cleared my throat and ventured into the arena:
“Do you have family photos from your childhood?” to which the speaker answered, “Of course.”
“Isn’t all that in the past? Why do you care? Why should anybody care?” I queried.
He laughed and said, “Well, don’t you think folks want to know what a famous person looked like when he was a little boy?” Then he yukked it up as he looked around at the group.
“Why should they?” I asked. “Isn’t it enough for them to see you right now and know what you’re going to do for them right now?” Of course I knew the answer, but wanted hear it from him.
“Well, yeah, that’s important, too, but people need to understand why I’m the way I am.” He was convinced of the impact his upbringing had on him and how that had formed who he is, so we should be, too. We needed to see his childhood photos to understand that.
Isn’t it strange how objective we can be about something in which we have no interest, but totally subjective when it’s all about us? When it’s somebody else’s dog in the fight, we walk away brushing our hands together. But if it’s our battle, that’s a whole nother story.
We don’t stop to consider how knowing what happened before today can add to our perspective of our plans for tomorrow. Being able to examine what has been done before, whether or not it was handled correctly and had a good or bad result, and see the outcome in 20-20 vision makes a huge difference in how we may proceed into the future. Rather than repeating the mistakes of the past, we may choose to use a similar plan or process, but re-think the implementation in order to achieve the desired result.
Years ago, someone told me that people tend to fall into one of two categories: dumb or stupid. The dumb ones are salvageable. They do something wrong because they don’t know any better, but are willing to learn a better way. The stupid ones make the same mistakes over and over never learning from their mistakes while they try to tell other people everything is fine or, worse yet, blame someone else for their stupidity.
Earlier in my life, I was a representative for up to fifteen wholesalers of products for the gift and souvenir industry. With five people working for me, we covered the state of Georgia selling across the spectrum to retailers, corporations, colleges, and non-profits. Product development was a big part of my work as I tailored products to fit the customers’ needs.
When you’re working with a customer who is looking to you to fill a specific need, it is imperative that you have their complete confidence. Without that, you’ll probably never see another order, much less the opportunity to develop custom items for their retail operation. It was my approach to educate the customer about the process as much as possible so they had a full understanding of what went into making their vision a reality. There’s nothing worse than being in the middle of a major trade show and having an unhappy customer ask to see a company muckity-muck. I’ve seen it happen to other representatives; I didn’t want it to happen to me.
A friend of mine got into a mess by fudging on some ship dates hoping the vendor could meet the customer’s need for expediency. It didn’t work. The product came in too late and the customer was stuck with a bunch of dated product she couldn’t use. To say everyone was unhappy is more than an understatement.
“You know what?” I told her. “You’d have been better off telling the customer that it was unlikely the product would make it on time and then let them decide whether to place the order. Now you’ve undone a relationship it took years to develop.”
Similarly, looking at our history and how it impacts our future as a people gives us the chance to learn from the mistakes of the past so we can develop a better plan for the future. When we brush away the past because it’s too painful to have to admit our goof-ups, we deny ourselves and others the opportunity to rectify a situation gone wrong. We demonstrate a weakness of character that others will remember at critical times.
We learn from the past — ugly though it may be — in the form of people, events, places, buildings, and communities. Don’t be in such a hurry to wipe the slate clean. Like my friend, you may hurt your chances for a better tomorrow.
Helen Person is a Winder resident and columnist for the Barrow Journal. You can reach her at helenperson@windstream.net.
