Doing It Right

John Noble and Jasika Nicole's
Fringe panel at Dallas Comic-con

This past weekend I attended the Dallas Comic-con. It was a blast and I thoroughly recommend it. It's crowded and it's just short of chaos, but its also a great deal of fun. Really, when you get down to it, most people are nerds about something. I've got quite a few somethings, but we don't need to detail all of that out here.

One that I will mention, only because it's relative, is the Star Trek Next Generation Panel that I listened in on. There was a little girl in the audience that had come the previous day in full costume as the Borg Queen. Very creative, very cool. She asked her question to the panel and when she had finished the actors were talking with her parents about the creativity that went into the costume and cultivating creativity in children. They  said that the parents were "doing it right."

That seems to be a common phrase lately. Doing it right, but what does it mean?

 I know that I've mentioned, as a writer, that I tend to dwell on words, their meanings, and how their used. Sometimes almost to a paralytic state. I have the personality that when I set out on route to a goal, I want to make sure that I'm doing it right and sometimes that means that I get so bogged down in the idea that I don't move in any direction. 

It seems like our world is increasingly full of pitfalls and snares that are ready to grab us around the ankles and drag us down. Do my words hold any weight? Have I validated my argument in every way possible? What if I've missed something detrimental because I simply didn't know where to look? How can I do this right?

I'm not sure there's a definite answer for this. (Scary, right?). I may simply be speaking for myself, but I'm not clairvoyant. No matter how many pieces of information I try to gather to make the best decision, there is always the possibility - the probability - that I've missed something. Whether it's research I'm doing for a book, reading up on historical and current news for this blog, trying to figure out the best route for publication, or just conversing with another person: I cannot 100% predict the outcome of an event that has not happened yet. 

So what is doing it right? If we can't pull back the vale of time and peer off into the future for our answers, how do we know? We don't. Sometimes we just have to take a breath, say a little prayer, and not let our fears tie us down. Kristen Lamb says every hard knock is a learning experience. 

Think about our foundings (you knew it was coming around to this eventually) as Americans. What if Dr Joseph Warren had been unwilling to stand strong while his political mentor Sam Adams was in Philadelphia? What if John Hancock, as a merchant, hadn't been willing to dump the tea? Or if Nathan Hale (and so many others) hadn't been willing to give his life? And what if George Washington had demanded a sure victory in order for him to take command? None of those men knew how it would end. Some didn't even live to see what their sacrifices bought. They had no idea that Americans nearly 240 years later would think they were doing it right. 

So we stand as each generation stands: with fewer answers than we have questions. Those knocks we take, both as individuals and as a nation, make us who we are. Own up to the mistakes and use them to make better choices in the future. Perhaps, God willing, they will look back on us someday and say that we were doing it right.