Cowboy Up

If you've spent any time in an office environment (admittedly, pre-pandemic for the most part) you're probably familiar with what's considered a classic of the motivational poster genre (a lucrative cottage industry unto itself) that has a basketball at rest at the foul line of a hardwood court, with a backboard, rim. and net above and beyond it. 

Underneath the ball is written, "You'll miss every shot you never take." I worry and wonder sometimes about how life imitates art and vice versa if we informally adopted that as an unofficial Rose City Mantra. (I missed the memo. Again.)

So often, perhaps too often, it seems every attempt to take a chance, try something different or look at a process in a new way is greeted with a chorus of voices working to shout down or drown in whispers whoever wants to try something new. 

In this case, I'm referencing, in particular, the news story from last week about a renewed effort to resurrect the historic (to someone, somewhere, I guess) Reid & Hughes building and the responses that story precipitated on social media platforms. 

Meanwhile, in the same week as the Reid & Hughes story, there was a report about Philly's, A Taste of Philadelphia expanding to both Bennington Vermont, AND New Haven, just steps from the Yale campus. In addition, we've had G.O.A.T.S. open a second location on Main Street, LaStella Italian Market expand and thrive in Taftville, and a half-dozen new, small and micro-businesses open across the city, and not just downtown, not just downtown, but reaction, for the most part, ranged from jeers to muted cheers with scattered misgivings in between. 

The online comments celebrating success right here in Norwich were, eye-opening, to say the least (and yes, I'm being somewhat sarcastic). Somewhere, we've invented a notion, to go with that eye-roll, that there's only a certain amount of success in the city/the world/the universe and it must be carefully rationed and monitored because if Business A succeeds there's less success for someone else. 

So what happens? We decide to 'just wait and see what happens' because, as we tell one another, you just never know. Eventually, the safest bet for each of us is to decide that for me to look good, you (whoever you are) need to look bad and, it follows logically, I can only be happy when you fail. Now that's a philosophy to really light the world, eh?

Yeah, of course, and we both know this, that's just a variant of the old 'if I don't do anything I can't do anything wrong' mindset that has been paying dividends around here for decades, or is that not what's been happening? The fear of making a mistake is, itself, a mistake-a cliche in every sense of the word because it's true. 

Someone once told me failure is a bruise and not a tattoo. Of course, he was wearing long sleeves at the time So I couldn't really check the veracity of that perspective but there's a lot to be said for learning to reward risk and risk-taking. And if things don't go according to Hoyle, figure out where the plan needs to be adjusted, and try again. Stop finding fault like there's a reward for doing it.  

There are opportunities for every imaginable success in Norwich, but each of us, in our own way, has to take the first step and be willing to accept the consequences, positive and negative, of our own actions. 

Time to Cowboy Up.
-bill kenny