The Man’s Choice: Glory or Nausea

Anything But That

Hacks are ruining your life. I’m not talking about your mechanic or what newsletters you read, either. The villain here is the quick tips. The shortcut to success.

Don’t nod your head yet.

This is an actual story that happened to me this week.

When I’m not writing about challenges personified as the Roman god of the sea, I’m mentoring apprentice automotive technicians. In recent days, we were practicing diagnostic processes. Here’s what you’d hear me telling them if you held your ear to the door:

Get a good understanding of the customer’s concern so you can verify it. Use a scan tool to retrieve diagnostic trouble codes. Utilize your wealth of resources in online service information to develop a comprehensive knowledge of how the system works. Read descriptions, operations, wiring diagrams, flow charts, and combine everything in order to develop a strategy.

If you can do these things, you can diagnose the car.

One apprentice looked right at me, pinched his shirt at the shoulders with each hand, and objected, “But, I’d have to read all that.”

I didn’t know what to say in the moment but now that I’ve had time to think about it, I know what I’d say.

“You’re not gonna make it.”

Skills vs Tactics

Hopefully you’ve heard the maxim about if you give a man to fish, you’ll feed him for a day; if you teach him to fish, you’ll feed him for a lifetime. I don’t know about you but I’ve run into too many young men who are so myopic they’d rather just be given a fish instead of learn how to fish. “Learning how to fish takes too much time and my attention span is shot. Just give me a fish.”

I was listening to some content from Tom Meitner about the difference between skills and tactics. I had some thoughts on it and I went to one of my closest friends because I knew he’s be able to help me put a finer point on it. This kicked off a discussion with my apprentices (before the balk about reading). Now for your reading pleasure, I’m about to give you the early fruits of that exploration.

If you’re going to set sail in a new boat, you have to know more than how to christen the vessel by breaking a champagne bottle over the bow. If you’re going to fix a car, you have to know more than how to turn a bolt with a wrench or retrieve codes with a scanner. You’re going to need more than tactics to make it, and our sons are going to need skills lest they fail to launch. If you never develop the skill, the tactic won’t bear the fruit you hope for.

A skill is something that you know how to do well by repetition and experience. It’s ability and knowledge. A tactic is knowing how to apply that knowledge to a situation to achieve a desired result. To go back to the maxim, a tactic tells me that the fish are biting in the river so that’s where I should cast, but the skill knows the fish in that part of the river are bull sharks so it’s not wise to go in with waders.

Hacks are when you try to apply a tactic without having the skill to apply it. In a world of reels, shorts, clips and sound bites, the easy way is served up on a platter for us like a charcuterie tray of success. The boys are climbing into the ships and they’ve never tied a knot. “Oh, but we’ve watched a video about how to do it.” The sea is a cruel mistress and has a way of winning the hearts of boys and men.

The bad news is that the sea is indifferent to you and your sons. It will swallow you up without a second thought and there is no forgiveness for error nor mercy for the weak. If you want to tame the sea, it’s going to take some effort. It demands respect. It’s not to be trifled with. A hack is going to drown. As an old friend reminded me this week, most things worth doing aren’t easy.

Now we’re at a place in time which has been lulled by enough years of hacks that skills are disappearing. There is a competency crisis. Ironic as it is, the attention destroying media that got us here has also become a pathway to get us out if we can develop the skill to navigate it. The road to building skills in the modern age is wide with opportunity, but as a fellow skilled father puts it: you’ve got to get the reps in.

As it turns out, the tactics don’t work because the skills never develop because we never get the reps in. Anything but the work. All talk, no action.

A Firm Foundation

Hacks are like trying to build a house on a foundation of sand, but that’s the easy way. It’s nice over here by the beach. There’s a breeze on the deck, a sunset on the horizon, and a mojito in my hand. Here’s to life by the sea. Why is the corner of my house sinking?

Smooth seas never made a skilled sailor.

Anything but rough seas. Anything but learning how to build a house. Anything but learning how to fish. Anything but learning how to read or how to write. Anything but lifting the weights. Anything but having the hard conversation. Anything but the entering the arena of conflict. Anything but enduring the cold or climbing the mountain. Anything but the work, the monotony, the struggle, the effort, and the repetition. We don’t need hacks. We need to get on the line and do it again. If we don’t and if our sons don’t, we will fail. We will drown and succumb to the sea.

What’s bad is that we know this and still, anything but the work.

How do we lose weight? Burn more calories than we consume.

How do we manage finances? Spend less money than we bring in.

What are the core disciplines of the Christian life? Read the Bible and pray.

Yet, in each of these examples, what are the things we don’t do? We are very good at knowing the things we should be doing and even better at not doing them.

I’ve been blessed to have many men as my friends throughout my life. One such friend inspired this entry by giving a Wednesday night message about building your life on a firm foundation. Whether it’s our skills for life, the standards of our beliefs, or the cornerstones of our faith, without a solid rock foundation we will falter. When the sea beckons us to its turbulence, we will answer the call with either glory or nausea. Nausea requires no skill, is easy to prepare for, and doesn’t require much from you.

The reality is men aren’t incentivized to skill and effort. Even from many pulpits, mothers are praised on Mother’s Day for their love and sacrifice while fathers are told to get off the couch and start sacrificing like the servant leader they should be on Father’s Day. The reward has been tarnished. The call to adventure has become quiet and the beckoning of the sea has been quenched. If life is the sea, we cannot avoid sailing it, and many of our ships are sinking, men. Many have chosen to be nice, tame, and complete pushovers to the slightest wave that might lap against their boat. Any resistance is too much.

Our task is to inspire one another, bring our sons into the fold, and answer the call to great adventure from a firm foundation. The hard work and repetitions that go into building a skill will pay off because then we will sea the sunrise from the helm instead of the waters passing by us as we lean over the edge to barf. We need vision. We need to see.

As my thematic inspiration for Fightin’ Poseidon taught me, There’s glory out there, out there to be won.

Some of you reading this may have a network of men to lean on. Some of you may only have your father or your son. Some are blessed to have both. Some of you have lost your fathers. Some of you, may God’s mercy pour over you like a wave, have lost your sons. Some of you may be totally alone. Some of you may only have the Lord to lean on but I promise, He’s more than enough.

It is worth the effort. It’s worth the fight and we must fill each other’s spines with as much courage as we can to keep going. Poseidon will loom over your every step. Ol’ Neptune is roaring. The glory of God and good of mankind must not be shadowed. Build on a rock. Remind each other of the firm foundation. Be the lighthouse. Laugh at the waves. Embrace the cold elements. Never give up.

When we lift each other up, rising tides raise all ships.

One day, Lord willing, despite the fight and the suffering, we will see the glory. Not of our own, but of the sunrise.

Talk to y’all in two weeks.

~ J.P. Simons