Measure Twice, Cut Once
Measure Twice – Cut Once is a practical proverb we remember from growing up. While we heard it mostly when our enthusiasm (or youthful impatience) had us “jumping the gun,” we still thought it was about rulers and tape measures.
As we got older, we realized it was really about slowing down long enough to check our thinking before doing something we can't easily undo. A little planning, a little verifying, and a lot fewer mistakes. But then, we were kids.
Bill: I fell in love with baseball and spent countless hours studying pitching, my favorite position. One day I started measuring things. The pitcher's mound is 60 feet 6 inches from home plate. Home plate is 17 inches wide, and a baseball is about 3 inches in diameter. That means the effective strike zone is roughly 23 inches across. Then I learned that a 100-mile-per-hour fastball reaches the plate in just .41 seconds.
Suddenly, all those measurements told a story. No umpire has much time to judge whether that ball clipped the strike zone. That's why even the best major league umpires are only about 93 to 94 percent accurate. The measurements helped me understand the challenge: when decisions must be made in a fraction of a second, there's very little room for error. When we do have the luxury of time, it makes sense to check our work before making the final cut.
Sheri: Speaking of accuracy, airline pilots get just one attempt at landing the plane. Right speed, right runway, right time, and hopefully right airport. A lot of verifying before ever landing is needed here!
Bill: Most of us won't be calling a 100-mile-per-hour fastball or landing an airliner. Fortunately, we usually have something they don't—a little more time. Time to reread the email before hitting send. Time to measure the board again. Time to taste the soup before serving it. Those small pauses rarely make headlines, but they save us from a lot of unnecessary headaches. That second look is often the difference between "Well done!" and "Well...that didn't go as planned."
So, if life gives you the chance to take a second look, take it.
Measure twice and cut once.
Sheri & Bill, Storytellers in Word Image and Song
Positive Reflections... Likeminded Perspectives
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” — Benjamin Franklin |
“It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret.”— Jackie Joyner-Kersee |
“Trust, but verify.” — Proverb |
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” — Benjamin Franklin |
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