Is It a Crutch or a Tool?

Is it a crutch or a tool?

Sometimes we find ourselves relying on things to help us accomplish tasks or goals. But do we really need to? If it is something that is helping make you better then it is a good tool that truly helps you, however if it is allowing us to be lazy, or not improve, or stagnate it is a crutch and needs to be discarded.

When I was young I had a rough time learning to ride my bicycle. Over time I tried to ride it without training wheels and I would crash. After a long time of trying to get better I became complacent and stopped putting any effort into learning to ride that bike without training wheels. I figured, "Why should I? The training wheels keep me from falling, I don't need to work on this." Well the problem was my parents wouldn't let me ride my bike past the neighbor's house while I had those training wheels on my bike unless my older brother took me with him. My brother didn't mind too much unless he was going to hang out with his friends in the open field where all the kids of the neighborhood liked to hang out at. You see training wheels and dirt don't mix, so the second I hit the dirt with that bike I would get stuck. Well after about a year of dealing with me not being able to go to the field (which meant he couldn't either) my brother got really mad at my lack of progress in learning to ride a bike. So my brother took me on a little ride way beyond our little neighborhood. Then he told me I had to learn to ride the bike without the training wheels, at which point he literally ripped those training wheels off my bike making them absolutely useless. He then rode off yelling that I had better figure it out. Well it took me about 20 minutes to get myself going, and to be honest it probably looked like I was having some sort of epileptic fit but I managed to ride that bike all the way home without those training wheels. They had been a crutch, something only meant to help take the burden off for a brief time; they were never meant to be a permanent fix.

I also suffer from a form of dyslexia. I have always had a hard time spelling words among other issues that come with dyslexia. I flunked more spelling tests than I passed by a great margin. Nothing the teachers or my family did helped. In first grade, I read at a sophomore in college level but my spelling was worse than most preschoolers. I worked everyday at becoming better at spelling, yet I was getting no better. Then the computers started having spell check on them. I started using the spell check even if I had to hand-write out my work. I would type my work out on a computer and see what words I needed to fix. This could of easily become a crutch but you know what? I wrote this whole post and only had two misspelled words (and no dyslexia was not one of them). I have become better at spelling and I still am working on it. I may never get great at spelling but I am not having to completely rely on spell check. It has become a wonderful tool for me to get better.

So when you use something to "help you" ask is it a tool or a crutch? If it's a crutch you need to get rid of it as soon as possible.

See you on the mat!