Wind the Clock

Wind the Clock

When I went through pilot training, there were still a few “old heads” around who taught an important and valuable lesson which remains applicable today.  They consistently said the first thing to do in an emergency is “wind the clock.”  The expression refers back to the days when aircraft clocks, like old watches, required winding in order to operate.  In this context it means when something bad happens, “doing something” immediately is almost never the correct solution.  Instead, before rushing to “do something,” you need to pause, analyze the situation and then take the correct action based on the situation at hand.

What do we hear today?  With ever increasing rapidity, particularly since Bush’s progressive “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system” Stimulus I, we’re told we must “do something” immediately or everything will collapse.

The economy is in trouble, so we must do something immediately and pass the stimulus bill (read by no one except the special interest group who wrote).  The car companies are in trouble, so we must do something immediately and put them under government control (while violating the rule of law to “bailout” bloated union pension plans).  The medical system is failing, so we must do something immediately and pass Obama care (yet another bill read only by the progressive special interest group which wrote it).  Do you see any pattern here yet?

Now we’re told the evil, capitalist oil companies (despite following laws established by the federal government and being forced to drill not where they wanted to, but where to government forced them to) are destroying the environment and needlessly stringing us out on oil dependence.  So…wait for it…we must do something immediately and pass cap and trade (amazingly yet another bill read only by the special interests who wrote it).

Gang, sit down, take a breath and stop allowing these people to lead you wherever they want merely by playing with your emotions.  Honestly, do you ever make really good decisions when you’re operating only off pure emotion or panic mode, believing you must “do something” immediately?

You’re not supposed to think.  They want you to only react.  Why do you think it’s become one thing after another, after another, all thrown on top of each other.  The game is to completely overwhelm you.  They want you operating in the realm of pure emotion, in the realm of panic.  It’s a very effective technique to keep you completely off balance and to keep you from thinking.

They don’t want you to think, because calm, rational thought is their enemy.  They know you’d never accept their agenda if you actually took the time to think it through and follow it to its logical conclusions.

The “dirty little secret” is you don’t have to play their game.  You don’t have to allow them to drag you to the realm of pure emotion and panic.  Instead of buying into the lie we must “do something” immediately, you have another option.  It begins with remembering to first wind the clock.