Rushing In

Audio By Carbonatix

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “Fools rush in.” Elvis took that line and put it into a romantic context. There’s also a romantic comedy movie that uses that phrase as the title. What this famous song and movie are getting at is that “rushing in” when it comes to making big decisions about romantic partners and lifelong commitments is not a wise move, although it often feels right to the people involved. Picking a partner is not the direction I’m headed in this article, but I should mention that if you’re in the process of deciding whether or not to marry somebody, it’s worth taking the extra time to make sure that you’re absolutely certain! Measured against a lifelong marriage that could last five or more decades, delaying an engagement six more months isn’t actually that long. 

The importance of using caution and taking the time to check your first reaction is also true in other aspects of life. In family life, these often show up when we only have some of the information about a particular situation, but we decide to start doling out some of our advice immediately. It’s so easy to overhear a comment and rush in to give your opinion or join a conversation late and decide to jump in to give your two cents, only to realize that what you were all fired up about wasn’t actually what they were talking about. 

When my kids were younger, it used to drive them crazy that I would be in another room and hear them arguing or talking loudly, which usually led to me shouting out my instructions from across the house (or another floor of the house) and deciding who was at fault and what should happen next. They often would come tell me, “Dad, you didn’t know what was happening earlier,” and then fill me in. Sometimes, they were playing and things got a little out of hand. Other times, the child I blamed would be trying to help me see how it was actually their sibling’s fault. But almost every time, one of my kids felt like they were getting the short end of the stick because I wasn’t seeing the full picture, but I was still acting like I knew all that happened. 

Back when I was jumping in to try to calm things down and it was just “kids being kids,” that’s one thing. But that approach is easy to take even now when my four kids are all in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. They’re much less understanding when I know 30 percent of the story and still choose to “helpfully” jump in to provide my “solution.” As my kids have become adults, I’ve noticed that I don’t rush in on the same stuff that I used to. When I see that there is some inter-sibling conflict these days, I tend to let them work it out on their own. However, when I feel like one of my adult kids is being mistreated or misunderstood by somebody outside of the family, I’m still pretty tempted to jump in and tell everybody what they should do. Sometimes I resist, but sometimes I don’t.

I’m sure I’m not the only one, though. I know there are parents, grandparents, and spouses reading this who sometimes go all in despite not having all of the information. Moving forward, let’s try to slow down and be a bit wiser before we rush in too quickly.