Do Nothing

If you’re new to this column and you just read the title, you may think this is about the upcoming election. You may then think that I believe you should just sit it out and do absolutely nothing.

But if you’ve been with me for the last 26+ years as a reader, you are well aware the one thing we do not talk about is politics. And the other thing is religion.

So, I guess that’s really two things we never, ever talk about.

So, if this column has absolutely nothing to do with the upcoming election, then what does it have to do with? Well, Dear Reader, the answer to that question is very simple and can be resolved using only two words.

Absolutely nothing.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Monday, I had an important decision to make, and I couldn’t figure out what to do. Both options I’d come up with seemed equally logical to me, so I asked The Wife what I should do.

As always, she gave me some very sound advice.

Side note, to all those married Neanderthals out there: Why marry a smart lady if you don’t listen to and follow her advice? I have for the last 27 years, and life has worked out much better than if I had tried to do it all myself.

But I digress…

Her advice?

“When you have an important decision to make and you can’t figure out what to do, the best thing is to do nothing.”

I thought about that, and that’s exactly what I did.

I did absolutely nothing.

How will it turn out? Don’t really know.

But it did get me thinking about just a few of the other times in my life when I decided to do nothing. And for that part of the story, we have to walk down that old familiar street from a long, long time ago and not so far away called Flamingo.

I was six the first time Down the Street Bully Brad knocked me down and beat me up. We’d just moved into 110 Flamingo Street. While my mom was cleaning my wounds, she said, “Next time, don’t fight back. Fighting back will make him mad. Just don’t do anything.”

Dad taught me how to fight back.

I went to sleep that night, all battered and bruised, thinking Bully Brad was called a bully for a reason. He was twice my size, but I figured if I stood up and punched back, I would get pounded into the ground and stomped even harder than I had been a few hours earlier.

So, a week later, when he knocked me off my bike, came over and started punching me, I heard Mom’s voice.

“Do nothing.”

That’s what I did.

I did nothing.

That decision was really a bad decision ’cause Bully Brad pounded me into the ground and stomped me worse the second time than he did the first time.

So, doing nothing really didn’t work out for me.

The next time I decided to do nothing, I was in 10th grade at Briarwood High School, home of the Mighty Buccaneers. Cornel Baker was our math teacher, and he gave us a huge test on Friday.

And I heard Mom’s voice again from when I was six years old.

“Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing.”

So, once again, I decided to do nothing.

I decided not to study. I decided not to review. I decided not even to open my book for a last-minute look the morning of the big test.

The following week, I got my test grade back and realized for the second time in my life that doing nothing was the wrong decision.

Lastly, upon leaving college, I filled out an application in the parking lot of a new kind of hardware store. I even opened my door, paused, then shut it, and drove off. I had decided to do nothing that summer except lay out by the pool. It was many years later that I found out anyone who applied and was hired that summer had ended up a millionaire.

That new kind of hardware store was called Home Depot.

Now I’ve elected to do nothing again.

But I guess doing nothing is actually doing something. Even if that something is doing nothing.

I know it may sound confusing, but one thing in the last 27 years isn’t.

I married a really smart lady.

And every time I don’t know what to do and ask her advice, she’s been right.

Even if her advice is to do absolutely nothing.