My hardest lesson: Pragmatism

My father and Grandfather on my Dad's side were always incredibly pragmatic and growing up this always seemed awful and boring to be this way. However, by age 12 I started to learn to be pragmatic myself. I was always a risk taker anyway so pragmatism was what kept me alive in all sorts of situations. One of the best things was being trained as an electrician starting at age 12 by my father who was an electrical contractor. It's easy to die any day you are doing this for a variety of reasons. So, if you are not pragmatic and methodical you are soon dead as an electrician from a variety of things.

The most dangerous things are:
Electricity itself: is it on or off and are you wearing rings or are you standing in water. are you outside and is it raining?

Ladders: especially doing commercial work in large warehouses or factories you can fall up to 30 feet off a ladder even if you are 12 to 15 years old. So, if you aren't careful every single moment then you are just dead or in the hospital. I never fell 30 feet of a ladder but my father did once when I was 5 and broke his wrist and was laid up for at least 6 weeks to 2 months when I couldn't work.

So, the farthest I fell was maybe 15 feet into a pile of lumber and then couldn't breathe for about 2 to 3 minutes while other tradesmen watched me to see if I was going to die or at least stop breathing for awhile. But, when I was able to finally gasp and get my breath back they were really relieved. I was about 17 or 18 when this happened and I took out about 8 or 9 feet square of t-bar ceiling (false ceiling then in the dry cleaners we were building then when I fell. Luckily that just broke my fall from 15 feet and didn't injure me more.

I preferred being an idealist like my mother and my grandmother. But, in the end becoming a pragmatist saved my life and created me into being a business owner and businessman which helped me support my children always and helped them through college too.

So, the very pragmatism that I hated in my father and grandfather I found was what saved my life and supported my children in life so they had a good start in their lives and still I'm able to help them when they need help even now.

By God's Grace