by Dan Roark
When you’ve been doing something the same way for years, chances are it would be difficult to get you to change. It’s hard for anyone who’s been doing something for a number of years to learn “new tricks.” Not just “old dogs.” Take folding t-shirts, for example. I’ve been folding shirts the same way for years. I can’t tell you why I fold them the way I do – see picture (not my best work). My mother is the only one who folded my shirts before I did and I don’t think I fold them the way she did.
I think Cyndy folds t-shirts the way my Mom did. I don’t know how my daughter by my first wife, Jennifer, folded her t-shirts, even if she did, before she passed away. And I have no earthly idea how her mother folds t-shirts – to my recollection, she didn’t. Mostly because she didn’t wear t-shirts. But her sons by the husband after me I’m sure wore t-shirts. But I don’t know how she folded them.
Of Cyndy’s and my three boys, Cameron folds his shirts like my Mom, I think. He wishes his wife, Julia, would fold t-shirts like he does. As the three boys were growing up, to my recollection, folding wasn’t required. As far as I remember, the boys just shoved their shirts into a dresser drawer.
The point is, none of us will ever change the way we fold shirts. And, among other things, we all grill differently, too. We grill the same meats, just our methods and spices differ. Even Cyndy and I grill differently although we aim for the same basic results. However, we’ve been using the grill my parents gave us years ago that was old at the time. It is just a basic charcoal grill.
Now we have Cameron’s grill/smoker because he got a more advanced smoker he could operate with his phone. But we haven’t been able to use it because, for one thing, the weather has sucked. That, and J.D. lived here until he moves completely into his new apartment, so his grill/smoker is also in the back yard. He grilled more than we did while he was here.
Our oldest son, Conner, lives in Des Moines, Iowa, so grilling isn’t really a thing for him. But if he did grill, it would be different from the rest of us. Cameron and J.D. don’t eat each other’s barbeque. Cyndy and I will gladly eat barbeque from any of our sons, but, like them, we prefer our own.
There are any number of other things that we all either learn, or just do, differently that it will be tough to get us to change, whether it would be more efficient to change or not. But chances are that we’ll never change.
What do you do, in your own way, every time you do it (and have been doing it for years)?
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Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.
Peace be with you.
Chasing After Wind 