The correct way to use a shovel

When I worked as a labourer during a summer after I left school, I was taught the correct way to use a shovel by one of the ‘old hands’. You place one hand on the shaft and the other on the handle. The handle and hand holding it, then goes against your knee as you ‘shovel’.

You push with your knee, not your arm. This gives more power and purchase to the ‘shovelling’ operation. It is more efficient and places the blade in the optimum position to cut between the loosened and still hard earth.

During my career in construction, I watched many people use a shovel, many didn’t use it in the correct way, perhaps they were never shown.

Correct? Is there such a thing?

The problem with ‘correct’ is that it’s absolute, finite, decided. There is no correct way to use a shovel. There is a better way and a not so good way. But these states are determined by what you are trying to achieve.

Our house was broken into last year. They used a spade (not a shovel, there is a difference), to break the window. To these reprobates, this was the perfect correct use of this tool. It did the job well, it broke our window. Their intention realised. To them, this was the correct use of the spade.

The correct way to parent. The correct way to eat healthily. The correct way to lead, to manage, to drive, to dive, to speak, to sleep? Are there such things? No, of course not.

There are better and worse for each of these and many more. But they depend on what is trying to be achieved. Without an objective, you can not determine what is good, bad, better, worse, correct or not.

It is a defined outcome, a goal, something to aim for that gives meaning to the action.

There has to be something to measure against. But even then, there is a lot of subjectivity.

Take being a good parent. That is a completely subjective statement and goal, it’s not precise and it’s open to a lot of interpretation and opinion. It’s also not just the parent who would decide if they were good. The child and society would have something to say about that too.

We are also continually updating our definitions of what the right thing to do is. The right way to parent 40 years ago is not the right way to parent now. We now know the damage coercive parenting does to children. Research has shown that kids who have to live in an environment with constant threat and a lack of affection and love are far more likely to develop CVD in later life as well as other health and mental illnesses.

Yet it was once supported by those who were meant to know, that children should not be shown affection and should be taught right and wrong through corporal punishment. This approach is still in use today, some children constantly live in fear. This creates humans who are constantly on high alert, ready to fight or flee if and when required.

It’s not just progression in research that leads to a different ‘correct’ way of acting. Society has changed too, the the kids of today are different because of the world they are in. It is not the same world that we grew up in. Because they are different, the same parenting techniques won’t work as they did.

I’m completely aware of the massive subjective generalisation I have just made. The phrase ‘wont work’ again can only be determined by a measure. That measure is continually changing as the world changes.

What was once correct is now incorrect. But the action has not changed, only our definition of what is trying to be achieved or how it is being judged.

Progress is made through the challenge of what is considered correct at this moment. Challenge what is correct; ask why it is incorrect. The chances are that at some point in the future it will be. Can you get there before the rest f the world does? Can you get a head start in predicting what is incorrect or will be.

Here are a few of my predictions of what will be ‘incorrect’ in the future.

• Eating meet from conventional mass farming
• Conventional mass farming
• Buying plastic bottles of water to drink
• The current school curriculum
• Coke and many other sodas
• Alcohol
• Sugar
• Showering in drinking quality water
• Driving your own car

What do you think will be incorrect in the future?

PS, there will always be a correct way to hold a shovel!