“DOING SO WELL, BUT THEN, . . . OOPS!”
“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18, King James Version.)
“Look, Mom, no hands!” (Nine-year-old boy, doing tricks on his bicycle.) “Look, son, a broken arm!” (Mom of the nine-year-old boy, at the emergency room, after the doctor had read the x-ray.) "I learned that it is better, a thousand-fold, for a proud man to fall and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride and fancied innocence. I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood. In nothing was my ideal lowered, or dimmed, or grown less precious; I only saw it too plainly, to set myself for a moment beside it. Indeed, my ideal soon became my life; whereas, formerly, my life had consisted in a vain attempt to behold, if not my ideal in myself, at least myself in my ideal". (George MacDonald, Phantastes, 166.)
I was doing well, I really was. I was hustling to sit people in my station, which wasn’t the best in the restaurant. However, if I look pitiful enough, I can often persuade (guilt?) people into sitting there. I was getting the orders right. After about an hour, I said to myself, “I’m doing pretty well tonight! Maybe I’m getting the hang of this serving business.”
I immediately discovered that I was entirely premature in my self-congratulatory thoughts.
I seated a grandma and grandpa and their little grandson in one of my booths—and proceeded to make three mistakes: I forgot to give them their silverware until the food came out. (They had to ask for silverware!) I didn’t get a salad out in a timely fashion. I forgot that the little guy got applesauce.
It seems that every time I think I’m doing well, I’m not.
So, what is the solution? Not, I think, believing that I am not going to do well in a given situation. Rather, I think that the solution is to simply focus on what I am doing, and striving to do it well. Not beating myself up, and not evaluating. Just being a doer of the work.
Pride precedes a fall. Yes, it does!
So, I apologized profusely, and offered to give them a “d e s s e r t” at my own expense. (I spelled it in case they didn’t want the little guy to have any dessert. Hey, I used to be a dad of small children!)
I did give them a small dessert, paying for it out of my tip money, and they went away fairly content, I suppose. In fact, they left me a six-dollar tip!
Self-congratulation is always a dodgy business. Humility is a choice, but it isn’t really optional. Sometimes, failure is a wonderful reminder of this fact.
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