Those Who Hesitate

 

I have a storehouse full of sayings and proverbs in my head, as I am sure many of you do.  And, it is ever so tempting to pull out one of those gems when we want to feel that we are being wise.  After all, sayings and proverbs have become what they are because they are (often) beautiful ways to encapsulate truths that many recognize.

But, have you noticed that proverbs don't always fully agree with each other?  Well, okay.  Have you noticed that if you take them at face value, they might disagree?  After all, these are proverbs and sayings.  The whole point of them is that you probably shouldn't just take them at face value.  If I told you that you could lead a horse to water, but you couldn't make it drink and you took that at face value, you would wonder when it was I was leading said horse to a stream.

And after all of this introduction, you might wonder if I was hesitant to get to the point of today's blog.

Speaking of hesitation

We are raising broiler chickens on pasture again this year.  Not as many as we have in the past, but there are a little over one hundred birds in the flock.  We have a building they shelter in at night or if the weather is inclement and we move that building every couple of days.  We let the birds out every morning and close them up at night. And, to further protect them from predators, we surround the pasture area we give them access to each day with electric fencing.

This year, we put the birds into the northwest pasture.  Unlike the east, there are more obstacles to move the building and fencing around.  And, I was telling Tammy that I get into trouble when I hesitate or don't fully commit to a decision about which direction I am planning to move the building and its fencing next.

That, of course, led me to this:   He who hesitates is lost.

And to a very real extent, this can be very true on our farm.  But it is especially true when it comes to making a decision that will impact activities for several days to follow.  For example, I had to decide if I was going to try to go around a tree while avoiding a low area in the pasture OR if I was going to pull forward into a corner and plan on cutting back at an angle going the other direction.

First, I had to make this decision a move or two BEFORE I actually had to execute whichever maneuver I was going to take.  If I was ambivalent and hesitant to embrace one over the other, I might find myself in a no man's land where I couldn't succeed with either plan.  And second, once the decision was made, my efforts for several of the coming moves were clearly dictated.  

If I chose poorly, I could be just as lost if I did not choose at all.  In other words, I could be lost whether I hesitated or not.

Look before you.... well, you know.

There are many proverbs that actually extol the value of hesitation - sort of.  I guess it depends on how you define hesitation.  Everyone who finished the saying above, probably understands what it is trying to tell us.

Look before you leap.  Or, maybe you prefer "look for thorns before you grab the stem of a rose?"  Whatever.  It's your brain, so you can play with the idioms that reside there all you would like.

Assess your surroundings, think about the possible future outcomes, before you find that you've put yourself into a very bad situation.  It actually doesn't sound all that different from what I was saying before when I suggested that I would be lost if I hesitated.  But, in my case, I was talking about hesitating to think about the situation and make a decision.

And we've got a whole host of sayings along these lines.  Measure twice, cut once. Think before you act and think twice before you speak.  But if we hesitate, we are lost.

Perhaps that is for people like me who prefer to think TEN times before they act?  I know that people who like to get the show on the road a bit faster probably feel pretty strongly that I AM lost.

Then, there is this proverb that appears to be from South Africa, if the internet sources can be believed:

The impatient person eats goat; the one who hesitates eats beef.

Now, if you like goat meat better than beef, this one may not get the point across to you.  However, beef is typically considered a higher quality meat than goat.  Once again we have a proverb telling us we should stop, take a look around, and consider things before we move forward.

I guess it all hinges on what you think "hesitation" means.  There's a big difference between being lost and eating beef, as far as I am concerned - so I want to get this hesitation thing right!