I am in a musing moment now as I think of what to write for this month’s blog. Note the word “musing” is different from “amusing.” (Hopefully I do not have to explain that). In the old days, I would tell you to look it up in Websters. For those of you less ancient than me, I will tell you to just Google it. What I am musing about is how to refine complex decision making into a few simple words. One of my favorite examples of this is how to define government bureaucratic activity as different from private enterprise and entrepreneurship. I can describe each in three words:
Bureaucracy runs on “Plans and Programs”
Private enterprise/entrepreneurship runs on “Profit and Loss”
If you think about the decision-making process for each group, you can see the above definitions fit nicely. Now how can I compress my own life’s activity with the private non-emergency decisions I have made into a few words? I think this will fit:
Important personal decisions: “Because I wanted to”
Example One: With a bachelor’s degree in biology and a tour as an officer in the USAF, why did I decide to go back to college as a freshman undergraduate to get a degree in electrical engineering? My older professor brother said it is bad enough for one to repeat the fourth grade, but repeating college is ridiculous. I did it “because I wanted to.”
Example Two: Why did I leave a secure job as a product manager with a major corporation to take a big risk and gambled starting a new company to manufacture a new medical instrument that still needed full market acceptance? “Because I wanted to.”
Example Three: Why in retirement did I decide to design and manufacture radical fuel injection systems for the ancient flathead Ford V8 engine to sell into a market that I knew did not really exist? “Because I wanted to.”
I look at my friends and associates to see if my simplistic reasoning might fit their situation.
Example One: Why does a distinguished Vietnam war veteran fighter pilot and a corporate aviation leader decide in his senior years to spend a chunk of money to go fly a notorious F-104 Cold War era fighter at supersonic speed? I think it was “because he wanted to.”
Example Two: Why did a retired successful business man who loves classic cars and hot rods take a perfectly good 1940 Ford coupe, which looks and runs like new, and have it totally torn apart as well as rebuilt into a very high performance hot rod? Perhaps “because he wanted to.”
Example Three: Why did a semi-retired car dealer decide to collect classic limousines and spend a huge amount of effort and expense to restore one of them to absolute perfection, so he could display it at the world’s most important car show at Pebble Beach? Pretty sure it was “because he wanted to.”
I could go on and on, as I’m sure you can too, as you think about how “because I/he/she wanted to” applies to your life and the people you know. I think one of the nicest things in life is to be able to do some very big things just “because we want to.”
I sincerely hope you have made decisions to do some important things in life “just because you wanted to.“