Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

To be effective in one way or another, gather resources.

resourceful: adjective, having the ability to find quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties.

Hmm. That is not the definition I expected, but that is what comes from Google’s English dictionary provided by Oxford Languages. You know, that place in England where they invented the English language or at least wrote that dictionary that would fill my den if my wife let me buy a copy (but I digress).

I like that definition. I like, “quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties.” (I was expecting resourceful to mean full of resources.)

I’ve always liked the idea of tools. A screwdriver is good for this. A hammer is good for that. I recently learned of a tool that helps install a garbage disposal. I will buy one of those the next time I install a garbage disposal. Yet another tool good for something. It is clever and it will overcome the difficulty of neck and back pain for only $10.

Tools are resources. Ideas are tools. Gather and save them. Apply them in a clever manner to overcome difficulties.

Books are full of ideas; blog posts are full of ideas. Social media is full of ideas. What? Yes. Seek the more outlandish sources. Seek the lowliest sources. Look in places you never look. Look in places that would embarrass you if you told your friends and colleagues that you looked. Find the resources that are in those places.

Let’s be more resourceful. Let’s overcome more difficulties. We can do this.