Tag Archives: bungle

Bungle

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Bungle: (v) to carry out a task clumsily or incompetently

No two people think alike.

Maybe they come close. But the only true guarantee is that in a room of thirty souls, you will have thirty unique perspectives. If we try to find a consensus of those opinions, we will end up with political gridlock and spiritual malaise.

Why?

Because we trim off enough fat that eventually we do away with the meat. And once we lose the meat of a good idea, just simply having bones will not walk it across the room.

We bungle because we assume.

We assume that everybody agrees, or we assume that since everybody does not agree, that action needs to be taken without agreement. So naturally, those who did not give their stamp of approval will do their damndest to sabotage the idea since they were not part of it.

Probably the worst kind of bungling is thinking that a bad idea which has already produced bad results can be improved on, simply by making some simple adjustments.

Every four years, we take the archaic electoral system, which continues to bungle our elections, and tolerate it because trying to find agreement to do something else seems too arduous.

So the bungling continues.

Bungling is not simply having a bad idea. That happens to all of us.

Bungling is when you think a bad idea can sprout wings and suddenly fly to heaven.

 

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Acquit

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acquit: (v.) 1. to free someone from a criminal charge by a verdict of not guilty 2. to conduct oneself or perform in a specified way: e.g. he needs to acquit himself well.

The word “acquit” makes me flash back to the O. J. Simpson trial in the 1990’s. Of course, if I was much younger, that might not be the case. But the memory of Johnnie Cochran saying, “If it don’t fit, you must acquit” immediately popped into my mind with the revelation of this day’s word.

To freshen your memory, the statement was made in relationship to a bloody glove discovered at the crime scene, which was placed on Mr. Simpson’s hand during the trial and seemingly was ill-fitted.

I guess that’s why the word “acquit” is an uneasy concept for me. I have to admit when I occasionally think about the idea of life after death, I don’t envision myself to be gloriously saved so much as I think of being “acquitted” by a really slick lawyer.

So after the experience with what they referred to as “the trial of the century” with O. J. Simpson, the word “acquit” leaves me a bit cold. What it connotes to me is that somehow or another, someone escaped responsibility due to a lack of evidence.

What I would hope for myself is that I would bring the evidence of my strengths AND weaknesses to the forefront BEFORE others prosecute me, making it clear that I am a mysterious balance between bungle and blessing.

Is that so hard to do? I guess it is. I would assume that our “jungle instinct” keeps us from admitting our faults, and instead, praying for an acquittal.

But of course, the danger of being acquitted is that unless you start walking the straight and narrow, you’re liable to slide off the path AGAIN–to get caught and this time, not have your fancy lawyer around anymore.

Thus the story of “The Juice.”

I think I’m going to work on being candid instead of counting on twelve people in a box deciding I’m not guilty.

Yes, that seems wiser.