My Father Would Have Done It Better

He would have done it better.

That is not false modesty and it is not a thing you say to fish for reassurance. It is a plain assessment and it is probably accurate. He was better at this than you are.

And it comes up at a particular moment every time, which is worth noticing. Not while you are working. At the end, when the job is finished and you are standing back looking at it.

That is when his hands arrive. That is when the version of it he would have made appears next to the version that is actually there, and the actual one loses, every time, without fail.

Here is the thing about that comparison. It is not a competition you are losing. It is a competition with only one entrant, because the other version does not exist and never will and cannot be assessed by anybody.

You are competing with something that was never built, and that is not a contest anybody has ever won.

You are a man's working with his own hands, and a comparison you cannot win has never once been a fair measure of anything you built.

Comparing themselves among themselves

There is a sentence in the second letter to Corinth about comparison, and the verdict at the end of it is unusually blunt.

But they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. (2 Corinthians 10:12, King James Version)

Are not wise.

Not sinful. Not proud. Not disobedient. Not wise, which is a judgment about method rather than about character, and it is the word chosen for the whole practice.

And that matters here, because a man carrying this comparison usually feels something closer to guilt about it, and guilt is the wrong response to a method problem.

You have a method that scripture calls unwise rather than wicked, and comparing yourself with somebody else has never once been named as a sin against anybody. Second Corinthians 10:12 uses the word wise rather than the word righteous, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps that a correction of method.

And look at what makes it unwise, because the passage explains itself. Measuring themselves by themselves.

The measure is being taken from inside the group being measured. There is no external standard anywhere in it. And a measure made of the same material as the thing being measured cannot tell you anything at all.

You were never using a real measure, and a standard made out of somebody else's hands has never once been a measure of your own work. The Spirit of God is the one who provides a standard from outside, and the written word calls the internal comparison unwise rather than condemning the man making it.

The version that does not exist

So here is the practical claim, and it is the whole of the article.

The version in your head is not his work. It is an idealized version of his work, assembled out of memory, with all the things that went wrong for him removed.

He had bad days. He had jobs that came out badly and got redone. He had corners that were not right and a few that stayed not right for years. None of that is in the version you are competing with.

You are competing with something nobody has ever built, and an edited memory has never once been the same object as a man's work. Second Corinthians 10:12 calls the comparison unwise, and the Holy Spirit is the one who puts a real man back where an idealized one has been standing.

And here is the second thing, and it is where the ordinary sadness sits.

For a great many men, the comparison is not really about the standard at all. It is one of the very few places the man is still present. Holding the tool the way he held it, hearing what he would have said about the joint, and the arrival of his version at the end of a job is a form of his company.

That is worth naming honestly rather than solving, because it explains why nobody ever gives it up simply by being told it is unfair.

You have somebody arriving at the end of every job you finish, and that has never once been only a comparison. The Spirit of God is the one who understands why a man keeps a measure that hurts him, and Second Corinthians 10:12 corrects the method without touching the memory.

And the practical move is smaller than giving anything up. It is saying it out loud.

You have a name that has never once been said in that garage, and an unspoken comparison has never once been able to be looked at. Second Corinthians 10:12 names the practice plainly, and the Holy Spirit is the one present while a man says a name out loud over a finished piece of work.

Say the name, and finish it your own way

Here is the assignment and it is in two parts and they belong together.

Say out loud whose hands you keep measuring against.

Out loud, in the garage, to nobody. I have been measuring this against my father. Whatever the true sentence is, and it might not be your father, and whoever it is will be obvious the moment you look.

You have one sentence that names a thing that has been running silently for years, and saying it out loud has never once required you to stop feeling it. Second Corinthians 10:12 names the comparison plainly, and the Holy Spirit is the one in that garage while a man says a name.

And then finish the job in your own way.

Not the way he would have done it. Not the way that would have satisfied him. The way that makes sense to you, with the method you actually use, at the standard your own hands produce.

That will feel like a small betrayal. It is not one. A man doing work in his own way is not disrespecting anybody, and the version of him that would be disappointed is a version you assembled and not the man himself.

Then stop. That is the whole evening. The name said and one thing finished your own way.