Category: Life

Cutting corners will cost you (or someone else) in the long run.

~ David Willis ~ 2 Comments

It has been colder in Oklahoma recently than any other time that I remember. I went to work last week and my temperature gauge in my Jeep indicated -4 degrees. For my friends up north this my not be a big deal. In Oklahoma?!! That is almost unheard of. If it gets down to 25 degrees around here people don’t like it.

After two rounds of snow finally melted off my yard (it was 81 here a couple of days ago…really….how do you have an 80 degree swing in a week?!!) things looked as if they were getting back to normal. I came home from work on Thursday and realized my driveway was still soaked. It should have been dry a couple of days before. With a little further inspection I realized that there was a small swimming pool forming in my front yard. There was a leak underground.

I took a few hours off on Friday afternoon to dig out the area and get down to the pipes. I wasn’t sure what kind of damage had happened down below, or how deep the lines were buried and the plumber indicated that he might be able to make it to my house late Friday afternoon, so I needed to get after it. Thankfully, he wans’t able to get there until Saturday. I dug for over 2 hours on Friday. I put another good hour in this morning. It took much longer than I wanted, but I finally isolated where I thought the leak was and then waited for the plumber.

Ok. What does this have to do with cutting corners? I am almost there. Hang with me.

When the plumber arrived it took him about an hour to have the line repaired and the water back on. I went out about midway through and he showed me a piece of PVC pipe that had a fitting on it. The PVC pipe joined up with a copper pipe. The leak occured where the two pipes met. The builder (or someone who last made repair on the line) used an incorrect fitting for joining the two pipes. The fitting they used caused a corrosive reaction with the copper pipe. The pipe had disintegrated. (I am sure the cold ground didn’t help the matter either.) The builder cut a corner, used an incorrect part, and years later I am affected.

This experience made me think. Where have I cut corners that might affect someone else? Has damage been done because I didn’t put forth my best effort? Was it laziness or incompetence?

The cost on this cut corner is roughly 500 dollars. The repair bill cost around 200 (much less than it would have been had I not had the hole dug out). My water bill has been almost double for 6 months. All of this could have been avoided had whoever used the right part. Thankfully, it cost much less than it could have. For that I am thankful. I will consider this a good life lesson to do things right the first time.

What? Are you kidding me? That wasn’t hard!

~ David Willis ~ 2 Comments

I remember how I felt after Marixa and I got married. Our marriage was (and still is) awesome. Life was good as a couple, but in a lot of ways I felt incomplete as a man. There were things that I was supposed to know how to do that I just didn’t or hadn’t had much practice at. Changing spark plugs. Basic home maintenance. Working with my hands. You get the general idea.

I remember telling Marixa on more than one occasion that we needed to get help to do this or that. I was 20 when we got married, so I hadn’t encountered a lot of the things that I would need to know how to do, but it still felt like I should be able to do them. I was a bit embarrassed because I had to ask for help. I didn’t realize at the time that asking for help was the first step in getting it right. Not having someone do it for me, but having someone teach me. How would I learn otherwise? (My father-in-law has been a great mentor for me over the years on how-to projects. I love that guy. Aside from my own dad, I can’t think of another man I respect more.)

I know guys who instinctively figure things out. It seems like they do anyway. What I really think they have is the courage to march right into something they may not know how to do and persist until they conquer it. One of the reasons I didn’t attempt more of the projects I would eventually learn how to do is I didn’t want to screw them up and then have a bigger mess on my hands. Basically, I was fearful. Not a good place to be.

I have since adopted this attitude: what is the worst that can happen? Ok, so I don’t get it right the first time. I pick back up and do it again. I was so afraid of trying that I had myself convinced I couldn’t do it. Most of the things I thought I couldn’t do I later found out that I could. Some of them really well. (Changing light fixtures is a breeze. Spark plugs aren’t so bad either.)

Life is about learning, making mistakes, correcting mistakes, and learning some more. If we don’t learn, we don’t grow. We sit in the same place and feel powerless. I don’t like feeling powerless. It sucks the life out of you. I choose the path of resistance. I choose to grow.

I can’t tell you how many times I have uttered the words in the subject line. I am glad that the fear of the unknown doesn’t stop me as it once did.

Have you ever said these words? What experience did you have that led you there?

Be careful what you say…

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

I am amazed at how much power we have. For good or bad. We have a very powerful weapon at our disposal: our words.

Our words have power. How we use them can bring joy or pain. Laughter or tears.You know exactly what I mean. You are probably thinking now about things that you have said or you have said to someone.

For example:

The Bad: You idiot. You are not good enough. Can’t you do anything right? I never loved you.

The Good: You look nice today. Thank you for helping me. I appreciate you. I am a better person because of your influence.

I don’t underestimate the power of my words. I have seen on more than one occasion how the things I say can bring harm. Sometimes when I haven’t intended for it to be that way. I can’t be careless with what I say. What is the old verse? Even a fool looks wise if he keeps his mouth shut.

When we do use our words on purpose it is amazing. A kind work genuinely spoken is like medicine for the heart. The cool thing is it doesn’t cost a thing to make others feel really good. Who do you know that needs your words today?

Learning to be consistent. In cooking and in life.

~ David Willis ~ 1 Comment

I am a Food Network junkie. It is usually what we have on in the evenings. (So much so that my son, who is two and a half, knows most all of the Food Network chef’s and asks for them by name…) One of my new favorite shows is Restaurant: Impossible. It is a lot like Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares, but without all the swearing.

On one episode, Chef Robert Irvine had the kitchen staff, four people in total, cook him the same dish off the menu. Each of them was to cook it the way they would serve it, without communicating with one another. The result? Each person cooked it a different way. The chef’s point was this: if a person comes into the restaurant and orders a dish they want it cooked the same way every time. Because there was no communication in the kitchen (no head chef) there was no consistency to the meal. Success can not be built in that way. It made a lot of sense to me.

I posted a few weeks ago about a disaster I had in the kitchen. You can read about it here. I made a dish called Pasta Carbonara. It is a delicious fettuccine meal that has bacon pieces in a cream sauce. I made it again last night, and atoned for my sins a few weeks ago. While making the dish last night I realized something. I used the wrong recipe a few weeks ago. (I even linked the wrong recipe in my last post…I couldn’t believe it!) I used the wrong blasted recipe! How do I expect to get the same results if I don’t follow the same steps…or at least use the same ingredients?!! It was a lesson in consistency for sure.

This lead me down the path of thought even further. This is one of the lessons I have been learning over the past few months. Learning to be consistent. I am finding it is the path to greater achievement. This has been true in blogging, building relationships, exercising, working, and just about every other area I can think of.  You can’t go to the gym sporadically and expect to build a perfect physique. You can’t spend random time with your spouse and expect for your marriage to be perfect. You can’t expect the dish to come out perfect if you don’t follow the recipe the same way every time. To build (or cook) things of quality and lasting value, you have to be consistent.

It sure makes things taste better when you are.

Dare mighty things.

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

It is  time. I have to escape. My enemy leaves me alone if I say nothing, but this leaves me a prisoner. The only way out is through. The door is open. Now is my chance. I don’t know which direction to take. I can hear the sounds of freedom, but I am confused. I am so turned around I don’t know north from south. But, I am determined. It would be better to die fighting for my freedom than to rot where I am. The first thing is to get up. They may not notice if I go slowly, but what if they do? On my feet, out of the cell door, I look to my left and right. There has to be a clue…and there it is, a footprint. Was another here before me? Is the path laid out and I am just seeing it? I take it. My legs are tired, but I take the first step and I feel life returning to them. My lungs take in the free air. A sword and shield lay feet away. I take them. As I grasp the hilt a pulse shoots down my arm. My limbs begin to remember something my brain is having trouble making out. I am a warrior. I have purpose. How long have I been hidden away? The first step was finding the path, and as I make my way I start to remember who I really am. How much time has been wasted?


From time to time, when I have extra moments, I like to use the notes application on my iPhone to jot down ideas and write short passages. The words above are from one of those writing exercises. But, what does it all mean?

I find myself a prisoner sometimes. Not by force, but by choice…or lack of choices. There are decisions to be made and life to be lived, but things don’t go as I have planned or things are harder than I expected and  I choose the path of fear and I completely shut down. (Is this just me or does anyone else do this too?) Fear can be a crippling enemy, but does it have to be? I don’t think so.

What really gets me are the what ifs. You know the what ifs right? What if I am not good enough? What if she doesn’t like me? What if he says no? What if she leaves me? What if I lose my job? What if? What if? What if? What good do they really do? They can leave you paralyzed if you let them. I know they have me from time to time.

I think the solution is to take the what if to their natural end. For example: What if I lose my job? We would have to use our savings and that would not last long. I would have bills to pay and obligations to meet. If I were unable to find another job I might be dragged into financial ruin. Times would be tough. I would lose some sleep. But is this really the end? No. This won’t kill me. (Might lose more of my hair and the rest might go quickly grey.) I would still have my family. My wife and my son would still love me. We would work through things. There would be happy times again.

Like the story above, there has to come a point when you realize the pain of staying is greater than the pain of going. You can no longer be a prisoner. Once you get moving, the excuses and the what ifs tend to fall away and you begin to accomplish. You remember who you are and what you are capable of. I think the most important this is standing up and giving it your best shot. I would much rather do that that live imprisioned by my own fears. Even if I fail, I want to know that I have tried. The following quote is one of my favorite on the subject:

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. – Theodore Roosevelt

What goal are you trying to accomplish this year? What fears keep getting in the way? Keep going. Keep moving forward. Dare mighty things…who knows? You just might get them done.