(All of us are incompetent. When a faucet leaks or a light switch quits working at my house, it is Nancy who fixes it, not me. I can help her with words when she’s trying to convey a particular thought to someone on Facebook or in a note, however. Dr. Frank Crane says it is easy to pronounce others incompetent while ignoring our own lack of skill. But, he says, there is one overpowering competence that he believes will survive all of the abuses that we, the individual incompetents, might do to it.)
ONLY HUMANITY IS COMPETENT
One day as I passed down the street, I came to a spot where a teamster had unhitched his horses from his wagon and was giving them their mid-day oats, beneath the shade of a benevolent and comfortable oak. From one of the animals, I noticed the collar had been taken and that his neck was sore.
“Pretty hard, isn’t it?” I inquired of the man, “to make a horse pull with a sore shoulder against the collar?”
“Yep,” he answered, “plum tough.” And then he handed me a bit of philosophy which I have put among most prized possessions. “There wouldn’t be much work done in this word, mister, if only horses and folks that are plum fit had to do it.”
There you are! That is a large and brilliant truth. The business of this earth is carried on by the incompetent and the unfit. It is the mothers that don’t know how to bring up children that are bringing up most of them; it’s the people not at all qualified to marry marrying; it’s the teachers that can’t teach that are teaching; and the preachers who can’t preach that are preaching. Most mayors, governors, and presidents do not know how to manage states, cities, and nations; doctors who don’t know are giving us pills and cooks who are incompetent are preparing our food; and altogether the world is in the hands of the unfit.
Yet, somehow, nature manages to get things done. She gains her ends. Perfectly balancing all of imperfections, she arrives at perfection. Let us take heart. Incompetence is no excuse for despair. No individual is competent; only humanity is competent.