THE POTTERY BARN RULE

Recently I read something pasted on the wall in a store that drew my giggle. It read "if you break it, you pay for it". An old cliche one might say, but I was simply reminded of the answers given by Collin Powell on this week's Time magazine when quizzed on "the pottery barn rule".

 Simply put, the rule states that " you break it, you own it". How true! Human beings from the first have a knack of passing the buck. Too quickly, we brandish a prideful glee when our resourcefulness is on display. But whenever damage is done, like the proverbial Ostrich, we hide our head in the sand of excuses, denial and finger-pointing. Even a child in his naivety puts together the damaged toy of another to look like it has not been broken. Futile, isn't it? Futile because, the older person does not only see things from a broader sense, he in fact knows the trick!

The issue here is not about being optimistic when one has "messed up". That is certainly very positive. But it is about agreeing to what damage has been done, owning it, taking responsibility for our actions or facing up to the consequences of our decisions. By doing this, our lives are free from the suck of regrets. It becomes the stand point from which optimism is built.

The shelves in the store that precipitated my thoughts were not over-loaded with everything fragile. If anything, they had glass coverings. So the chances of anything being broken were much less than usual. Invariably, damage can still be done, hence the warning on the wall. Life is almost like that. It's not that we set out to break every thing that crosses our paths (well, I can't really speak for folks with persistent clumsiness). Sometimes, things just happen that we would prefer otherwise. They happen in the minority. We should "own up" and move on.