I finally apologized to my dad about the fence argument

Last week my dad said 'you measure once and cut twice because you're scared of wasting wood, but you end up wasting more.' He was talking about how I built my deck back in June. It hit me that I've been doing the same thing at work for years - double checking everything because I'm afraid to make a mistake. Has anyone else had a parent call them out and realize they were right all along?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_harper3d ago

That "measure once and cut twice" thing really got me thinking. You're basically saying you're so afraid of messing up that you do more work than necessary, which ironically makes things worse. I've seen it with my own dad too. He's a carpenter and he always told me "do it right the first time or you'll be doing it again." I spent years double checking every little thing at work, running the same route twice because I was scared I missed a package. Turns out I was just wasting time and gas. Sometimes the quickest way to get it right is to just do it and learn from the mistakes you actually make, not the ones you imagine.

marywilson3d ago

Your dad's line about "do it right the first time" hits home. That saying makes you think every small mistake is some huge disaster you can't recover from. But real life doesn't work like that. Most mistakes are fixable, and half the time nobody even notices them except you. The energy you burn being scared is way worse than the energy you'd spend fixing a small problem later. It's like driving five miles out of your way to avoid a pothole when you could just slow down and roll over it.

the_mary3d agoOG Member

Saw a study once that said overthinking actually makes you slower, which sounds exactly like what @the_harper described.