By Kathy Harlan
With the Texas primaries in March, we have been subjected to
months of rhetoric, debates with innovative formats, non-stop
political advertisements, and many accusations.
Political campaigns are notable for their claims of inconsistency
by opponents. “He speaks against drugs now but in college he smoked
pot.” “She voted to authorize the liberation of Iraq, and now says we
need to get out.” “He was pro-choice but now is anti-abortion.”
So what! I would rather vote for a politician who learned something
from years of experience than someone who refuses to budge because
he/she will be called inconsistent. How can we expect a young,
enthusiastic college student to have the judgment gained from years
of trial and error? Mohammed Ali put it this way. “The man who
thinks at 50 like he did at 20 has wasted thirty years of experience.”
Martina Navratilova contends, “Those people who are consistent
in performance are those who strive for mediocrity.” In my athletic
days I hit thousands of tennis balls, engaged in hundreds of drills,
and practiced special shots over and over and over, striving to be consistent.
But Martina’s words often inspired me in tense moments of
the game to go for the risky winning shot instead of playing scared.
I salute the athlete who takes a risk – the basketball player who
wants the ball in his hands when the clock is winding down and the
shot must be taken. Michael Jordan might have missed the previous
four shots, but when the game was on the line, he had the courage to
try again. I want him on my team instead of the timid soul who won’t
risk clanging the ball off the rim at crunch time.
“If you don’t make any mistakes,” says Houston Symphony principal
pianist Scott Holshouser, “you aren’t taking any risks. You never get
better playing safe.” You never hear a false note in elevator music,
but then you never hear a virtuoso performance either. Sometimes
I get nervous as the singer on the ball field approaches the finale of
The Star Spangled Banner and “The land of the freeeeee.” Hitting
that high note is risky and sometimes they miss, but the world knows
they tried.
Jim Whittaker, the first American to reach the summit of Mount
Everest says, “Live on the edge, or you’re taking up too much room.”
My husband Charlie agreed to stop at the Khumbu ice fields on that
mountain when he had me and young children waiting at home.
Walking on a rickety ladder over bottomless chasms of ice was not an option. Living on the edge for him was making it to
base camp, a significant achievement for an engineer
and “weekend warrior.” There are risks and there are
foolish risks, and the definition of “the edge” changes
over time.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little
minds,” according to Ralph Waldo Emerson.
But how do we determine what is a foolish
consistency and what is a necessary one? I
want to be operated on by a doctor who has
performed a thousand operations instead of
one performing his first procedure. But if
a risky medical procedure is the only way to
make life meaningful, give me the surgeon
willing to put his reputation, and my life, on
the line.
We were part of the NASA family for forty years.
As events have shown, the space program was safe – as experimental programs go. But no one who lived that adventure
downplayed the risks. The accidents were tragic and maybe a shock
to the public. But the test pilots who made up the early astronaut
corps certainly knew what they were getting into, and they embraced
the danger as part of the adventure.
Christopher Kraft, the lead flight director for the Apollo 11 mission
said recently, “It was a convergence of stars” that allowed the success
of the moon landing. There was a
high chance that something would
go wrong but somehow, everything
fell into place. In today’s political and
economic climate, flights are put off
until “perfect conditions” are achieved.
We would never have launched
Apollo 11 if today’s requirements had
been in effect. Mary Shafer, a NASA
Dryden Center official says, “Insisting
on perfect safety is for people who
don’t have the balls to live in the real
world.”
That “inconsistent” label has
haunted and ultimately defeated a
number of candidates for political
office. When I vote in the upcoming
elections, consistency will not be the
prime determiner. Consistency takes you a long way, just not all the
way!
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