People Are More Important Than Things

Have you ever started a project, something you enjoy doing, and run into frustration after frustration? You start to write down a note, and the lead breaks in the pencil. You can't find another one handy, so you start looking for the pencil sharpener. It is lost. By the time you find it, and sharpen the pencil, you forgot what you were going to write... Right?

Or if you didn't forget, while looking for the pen or pencil you saw so many other "things" that you would rather do... Eventually, you return to your original project without the same enthusiasm as when you started.

"Now," you say, "where was I?"

I could claim this happens to me because I'm old and forgetful, but this has always happened to me. In looking for an object, I'm easily distracted by other objects; then I forget what I started looking for in the first place. My daughter thinks I need to get organized. She's probably right. I'm working on it, even though I'm old, now, and changing your ways is difficult when you have behaved the same way all your long life.

For instance, my husband is a Perfectionist. He is a wonderful craftsman. He can make most anything with wood and it comes out perfect and beautiful, and useful. He goes at it just like Mama used to quilt: carefully, thoughtfully, skillfully. And Slowly.

Today he is making shelves for the laundry room. If I were doing that, I would just buy a few of those metal "L-shaped" thingies you screw to the wall and then to the shelf's underside, and there you have a strong shelf in a few minutes. But not Jack. He has the skill (and buys the materials) to make strong and beautiful wood shelves, and works on it for two or three days. He wants every aspect of it to be absolutely perfect. He spends a lot of time measuring and re-measuring and writing down notes, and looking for a certain size of a tool, trying to make use of just the right blade or screw or whatever all those thingies are... It drives me crazy.

When we are this old, we are set in our ways. We are not going to change. When someone tries to change me, it is offensive and hurts my feelings. I know he is the same way. And he is much more important to me than the shelves. It is not a big deal if the shelves never get put up and we never get finished remodeling the laundry room. It is a very big deal if I hurt my husband's feelings in trying to make him go against his nature and do his work my way.

People are more important than things.