I am now in day two of what should have been a five-minute job, fixing a broken PVC pipe in my attic. Five-minute jobs taking days or more is a common occurrence at my house, a little too common, if you ask me. However, last night this particular job exposed a deficiency of mine, one that I knew better than to fall into. I had already been to town to the hardware store, and picked up a coupler that matched the size of the broken pipe. I got home and took it to the attic and went to work. That pipe didn't know who it was dealing with. To my dismay/shock/chagrin? the pipe did not fit into the coupler, and there was nothing I could do about it, and believe me when I say that I tried. It was too late to go to town again, so I had to do the unthinkable. I had to tell my wife that it wasn't going to be fixed until the next day. She smiled, not an "I thought so" kind of smile, just a loving smile.
"The pipe says 3/4 of an inch, and so did the label on the couplers," I said to her. Then I looked and in small engraving on the coupler was the figure 1/2". I was crushed. "It was labeled wrong at the store; this isn't my fault," I said, frustrated.
Gently, she said that when she is at the grocery store, she always checks to make sure that what she is getting matches the label on the shelf, just in case something was misplaced. She was right. I always teach that a man has to take it upon himself to learn from mistakes and to have the humility to change. After all, that is the essence of repentance. One thing that separates the men from the boys is the willingness to take responsibility, and I had momentarily failed that test. We have to make a decision. Do we want to be vindicated, or do we want to get stuff done?
Update: Done.