Have & Get

If you HAVE it use it, if you don't HAVE it, GET it!

HAVE:

One day a man was driving his new pickup truck down a rather busy city street when he realized that the front right tire was going flat. Much to his disappointment he pulled the truck over to the side of the road and began the process of taking the flat tire off and replacing it with the spare tire. After jacking the truck up he removed the lug nuts and carefully placed them in the small decorative tire cover he had to remove to get to the lug nuts. He then placed the tire cover that was holding the lug nuts on the curb. As he was taking the tire off he accidentally hit the lug nuts and watched helplessly as they all fell into the storm drain! A passer by saw the predicament the owner of the truck was in and after a few minutes suggested that the truck owner remove one lug nut from each of the three tires still on the truck and use those to hold the spare tire on until he could get to a place where he could replace the lost lug nuts. He could use the the resources that he had and get the job done without HAVING to get other resources.

GET:
The West Texas country is beautiful. The land is filled with low profile, hardy trees that can withstand the winds that whip across the landscape, cactus and a very rocky soil. There are thousands of rocks, large and small. The ranches are huge and the Texans are "Can-Do" Texans. One of my Texas rancher friends was inspired to smooth out a section of a very rocky road on his ranch. He spent a month working the section of this road with a tractor and whatever other equipment he had at his disposal. After about a month he told his ranch foreman that the road was even rockier than when he started and was more difficult to drive on. His ranch foreman agreed and said: "If you keep fixing it with what you have, pretty soon you will not be able to drive down it at all." The foreman knew that in order to get the road smooth the rancher would need to GET soil and fill in between the rocks. It mattered not, how much he worked the rocky terrain, unless he GOT additional soil, he was not going to have a smooth road.

When you have to get something done, evaluate your situation and determine if you HAVE what you need or do you need to GET something to ensure that the outcome will meet expectations. There will be instances when you get involved and do not realize, until well underway, that you either do or do not have what is required. If you HAVE what you need, keep the fires burning. If you do not have what you need GET it.