WHY HASTE STILL MAKES WASTE

A year most people globally would like to hurriedly forget, due to the drastic effects of the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), has finally entered to its apex month. While we are happy to end it, strategising for the coming year needs intricate thought leadership and concise implementation plan with patience as its foundation.

This is a year when our patience has been tested and to choose between the two most relevant words for the year would pit pandemic and adaptability in one room. Today’s column though is about patience and its role in adaptability.

Interestingly though, the word pandemic has been chosen as the Word of the year 2020 by the Dictionary website. Even in slang streets the word pandemic has been frequently used as others used it tongue-in-cheek to describe slippery love relationships quipping ‘umjolo (love relationships) - the pandemic’ in many posts about things gone wrong in relationships.

At Dictionary.com, the task of choosing a single word to sum up 2020 was a difficult one as the definition experts noted that this was a year roiled by a public health crisis, an economic downturn, racial injustice in some parts of the world, climate disaster, political division in some countries, and rampant disinformation through fake news (one sourced or none identified sources) especially on social media gained popularity with gullible audiences.

perspective

“But at the same time, our choice was overwhelmingly clear. From our perspective as documenters of the English language, one word kept running through the profound and manifold ways our lives have been upended—and our language so rapidly transformed—in this unprecedented year. That word is pandemic, our 2020 Word of the Year,” the connoisseurs of the language said.

The world as we know it has over the years adopted an instant lifestyle approach to everything. This however is not in line with one of the basic and oldest idioms Haste Makes Waste which means acting too quickly may actually slow things down. It is similar to my own coined quote, “A shortcut is the quickest way to the longest route.”

This rhyming warning of haste makes waste was apparently first recorded in this exact form in 1575 and was also in John Ray’s 1678 proverb collection, where the full text was: “Haste makes waste, and waste makes want, and want makes strife between the goodman and his wife.”

So unpacking this, an idioms website states that if you do things too quickly, you can make mistakes, hurrying will result in poor endings, you will make mistakes if you are too hasty, rushing through things causes errors, resulting in time, efforts, resources being wasted and doing things too quickly will result in bad finishing.

Now some may recall the old saying “No hurry in Swaziland” which never made it to Eswatini as I have never heard anyone say no hurry in Eswatini. Actually I wonder who coined it and if there actually was a need for hurry anywhere in the word if that idiom is anything to go by. Today we see a lot of young people trying to go for shortcuts to access their financial freedom and the results are eye-watering. 

Last week there was a trending video on social media of a young girl who was captured fondling a man seemingly old enough to be her parent. The girl unashamedly states that she does what she does to get paid E5 000 each time. The jury is still out on how true her claim is. To her she was promoting quick money. No working 30 days and no laws to follow. But equally, no sustainability of that income. Because haste does make waste. One person on social media was quick to bring her to order saying that since she was still a teenager, she should rather go back to high school, go to tertiary and then look for a job or open a business then legally enjoy financial freedom as fruits of her hard labour. 

produce

The way we all were taught as we grew up. Yes the formula does not always produce the desired results when one considers the fact that there are so many unemployed graduates but in time it does. It merely does not produce the results at your timetable but on God’s time. 

This is attested by Isaiah 60:22 which states that “When the time is right, I, The Lord, will make it happen.” 

So if we are to be able to plan well for 2021 we need to avoid haste. Last week in church they preached about patience. They spoke of something called the crock pot generation verses the microwave one. The crock pot produces food after a very long time but it is nutritious and tasty. Microwaves may be fast but have their own side effects on some bodies.

In management we all want instant results, just like even when we got a new cabinet of ministers we all expected them to deliver within the second week in office. But excellent results take time. I still have no doubt that we have one of the best teams we have ever had in decades and that given time we will appreciate just how good they are. Liverpool hired a manager from Germany Jurgen Klopp to end a 30 year league title drought. 

The coach in his first press conference in 2015 pleaded to be given time if he is to make that dream a reality.

The German manager, speaking at his first press conference said: “If I sit here in four years, I am pretty confident we will have one title.” Fast forward to 2019, at the end of the four years indeed he had delivered the trophy with a bonus of three others in that year. A classic example of how great things take time from thought process to implementation.So perhaps there is indeed no reason to hurry, only if the plan is right.

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