Try Dr. Porter-Cable Instead

I'll tell you what. I'm starting to think I should promote myself as an alternative to obese diet guru and hit-and-run therapist Dr. Phil. My method? Tool therapy. I keep writing about this. You get yourself a big pile of tools, you start conquering problems that used to make your testosterone evaporate, and the first thing you know, you feel like a new man. And you didn't even have to be exposed to Oprah.

I took some classes at the University of Kentucky a long time ago, and I had a psychology professor who was pretty obviously a Republican or a Libertarian (college professors generally smoke dope). His name was Tom Zentall. He made a big impression on me. If I recall correctly, he said welfare didn't work, because it caused something called "learned helplessness." He mentioned a rat experiment in support of his work. It goes like this. You give rats some sort of a problem--I forget what--and then you either make them resolve it for themselves, or you resolve it for them. Then after you've done this long enough to get them conditioned, you put them in a tank of water. And the rats that helped themselves survive, and the rest let themselves drown. The principle extends to people and welfare. They learn to depend on it. Shocking news, I know.

Okay, I looked it up. You squeeze the rats. Some you let go, and others, you allow to extricate themselves. The ones you release drown, and the ones who save themselves swim. I actually think about that every day while I mash Marvin. I let him think he freed himself from my grasp, but that's only true when he bites the hell out of me. Don't tell him; he feels a tremendous sense of achievement.

Zentall made the news not too long ago, with some claim or other that reflected his political beliefs, but I can't remember what the story was, and I'm too lazy to look it up.

The same principle unquestionably works on people. You don't have to be a psychologist to know that. The more you succeed at solving your problems, the more willing you are to tackle new ones. And if you can't solve your problems, you become less willing to try in the future. You can couch this stuff in psychological mumbo-jumbo terms, but you could just as easily pick it up from watching John Wayne or reading Patton's biography. Patton said, "Never take counsel of your fears," which amounts to the same idea. The more you try, the more you succeed, so the more you try.

One of the greatest things you can do for yourself, psychologically, is to beat a problem that has been kicking your ass for months or years. And every man who has a home and a reasonable amount of stuff has problems like that. And tools are the answer. Tools are the way out.

I've been disposing of all sorts of old business since I tooled up. Shelves all over the garage (even on the ceiling, ten feet in the air), concrete slugs pulled out of the yard, a new workbench, three 240 circuits, new electrical outlets, concrete voids filled and sealed, a huge outdoor entertainment cabinet with a TV and stereo, a big smoker with an external smoke box...one thing after another. You would think the big payoff would be the concrete results, like the shelves and cabinet and so on. But that's not true. If that crap all disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn't care, because the real benefit is that I have the ability to do it all again. And now, when I look at other things that need to be done, instead of caving in and putting them off (eternally), I realize I can take care of them, and I start making plans, and I actually follow up.

Last night I fixed the headlight on my Harley, and then, of course, it wouldn't start. Because the last time I filled it up, I failed to add the Sta-Bil which I bought for the specific purpose of avoiding taking the carb apart again. I knew this was coming. Dumbass. But I was ready. Instead of turning off the garage light and plopping in front of the PC or the TV and trying to think about something else, I yanked the air cleaner off, opened up the carb, took out the slow jet, blasted the bejeezus out of it with carb cleaner, determined that I had succeeded in salvaging it, put it back in the bike, and tried to start it. Nothing happened. So I grabbed my MAPP gas Turbotorch, held it up to the carb, hit the ignition, and started it using the gas as fuel. Ten seconds later, I had a smooth (for a Harley) idle. I got on the bike, went to a gas station, filled it up, came home, added Sta-Bil, and felt like I had cured cancer. It runs better than ever. It should. It has aftermarket pipes and a carb kit. But I digress.

I woke up today thinking about other things I should do. Nagging problems I have refused to confront. I used to have a habit of refusing to think about difficult household jobs, but now I have a lot more confidence in my ability to handle them, and I can anticipate how great it will feel to get them over with, so I end up doing things instead of avoiding engagement.

The Dr. Phil angle here is that conquering your tool fears will give you energy and confidence that will extend beyond tools. You'll feel more motivated to tackle life's challenges, generally. And wouldn't you rather spend $300 on a new miter saw that will last 20 years, than on a ticket to a seminar delivered by a fat, self-righteous, bald grifter?

I wish there was a book in this, but no one would buy the damn thing.

Here's one of the fruits of my journey into tool competence. I want to get my finances totally computerized and update them as I go. I would rather kill myself than dig through receipts again or pay a single dime in penalties to the IRS for screwing up on a filing. I want to know where everything is, all the time.

I hate the damned IRS. Not because they take my money. Because they make me fill out forms. I despise forms. They are the devil's favorite instruments of torture. Forms usually fit 95% of the population, and I'm always in the other 5%. And the IRS can do pretty much whatever it wants to you, if they don't like your accounting.

I was thinking about Wesley Snipes last night; apparently he has given an interview, claiming he had no idea he was breaking the tax laws when he took weird advice from his accountants. They say he could get 16 years. And for the first time in my life, I asked myself: why do we put people in jail for something as trivial as screwing up their taxes? I had never questioned it before, but if you think about it, it's insane. If I owe you ten billion dollars, the most you can do is sue me and get a judgment. But Richard Hatch went to the penitentiary because he owed the government a relatively small sum. Does that make sense? And isn't it counterproductive? If that creep had been allowed to remain free and pay fines, he would have made a pile of money, and the IRS would have gotten a lot of it. Why criminalize his behavior? Now the taxpayers have been saddled with his bills and the cost of his trial, and for the rest of his life, his tax contributions will be greatly diminished because the scandal crushed his earning capacity. I just don't see how that is a good result or how it can be considered just, in a country which prides itself on the decriminalization of debt. I don't know if any Presidential candidate will ever get anywhere with a flat tax plan, but I'll bet a promise to decriminalize the tax laws would bring in twenty million votes.

Wesley Snipes is apparently nearly insane, and I guess he tried to screw Uncle Sam. But I wouldn't want him to go to jail for that. That's just stupid. Let him make movies and pay it off. It's not necessary to put people in jail, in a world where virtually all money can be tracked down using computers. Accounts can be frozen. Wages can be garnished. He's not going to be able to hide anything significant. Tax debt is just debt, and the damage can almost always be undone. Why shoot the cow when it can still give milk?

Anyway, I want some software. Some guys want to die with the most toys. I just want to die organized.