Ahh - the sweet smell of sweat!
The drama was superb. The Republicans were waving this unmanageable shock of paper before a phalanx of whirring digital cameras and declaring, "I was not given time to read this stimulus bill before voting on it."
The Democrats, fresh from the euphoria of a November fight, leaned on the stack and opined, "We worked hard on this legislation and know every provision will return our economy to its world-renown greatness."
The truth is, no one read the 996 pages. Neither was there any interest in reading the 996 pages because the politicians in Washington, D.C. - like the rest of us - have outsourced our brains and bodies so we do not have to savor the sweet smell of sweat.
Politicians do not read legislation because their offices have legions of paid staff that ply the verbiage with Post-it Note multicolored flags and lined legal pads citing political minefields and bonanzas.
And politics are reflections of us.
Outsourcing, once the scourge of a Rockwellian America, has infected the DNA of our "hard-working, self-reliant" self-image. We blanched the first time we heard good American jobs were being sent to Mumbai, India, and Mexico City, Mexico. We were flummoxed when we started looking at labels on our underwear that read, "Made in China."
There is, in my opinion, a far more insidious outsourcing taking place.
If it does not feel good, will take too much time or makes us sweat, we will pay other people to do it.
Do you weekly vacuum your carpets and clean your bathrooms? Do you wash, wax and detail your own car? Do you compute your own tax return? Do you know exactly where your retirement savings are invested and whether your plan had a plus or minus return last month? Do you pick up your own dry cleaning?
If your life is out of control, you can hire someone to come to your home, make an audit as to how you amassed this mess and structure a new menu for life - with a personal coach to make sure you are staying on the straight and narrow.
I admit that I do not read my monthly investment statements. I pay someone to do that. I also count on my automobile dealers to alert me when some maintenance light goes on in their universe because I do not have time to calculate if my brakes need new pads. And I pay my dentist a lot of money to get my gums back in shape because this flossing thing just takes too much time.
Frankly, none of us had a problem with outsourcing, as long as we could afford it. This present, deep recession has sobered us to the financial realities of living the good, outsourced life. When our elementary math revealed the cost of the pedicures, the lawn mowings and the mobile dog baths could not be supported by a dwindling income, we started to count the cost of outsourcing our lives away.
I celebrate the entrepreneurial opportunities woven into capitalism that birthed Geek Squad, Merry Maids and Jiffy Lube, but I am concerned we also are losing the wonder and intrinsic fulfillment of sweat.
Geoff Colvin has just written a fascinating book, "Talent is Overrated," which addresses the myth that some people are just born with talent and the rest of us slog our way through life complaining to everyone in sight we did not have the right genes to be a Mozart or Tiger Woods.
Colvin's conclusion is that "deliberate practice" - not gene-pool advantage - creates excellence.
I closed Colvin's book and paged through the history of my life. I reviewed those agonizing scenes when hard work, accented by a lot of sweat, was my only choice. I also recalled that in the wake of the hard work, I savored the sweet nectar of accomplishing what had only existed between my ears.
So I will continue to pay for my lawn to be mowed and manicured, my taxes to be prepared and my faucets to stop dripping. But if I ever stop working hard, with deliberate practice, on those skills I have yet to master, I will lose the wonder that rushes in to fill the wake of difficult work.
Ahh, the sweet smell of sweat!
Cal LeMon of Springfield-based Executive Enrichment Inc. solves organizational problems with customized training and consulting. He can be reached at execenrichment@aol.com.
