My Car Is Not Clean, Though: On Advice

My father has several pieces of advice he trots out on occasion. One is to keep your car clean, so that when things aren't going well, you can say to yourself, "Well, at least my car's clean."

This e-mail exchange between my father and his children from a few years back probably sums them all up:

---

SUBJECT: dad says
FROM: Dad
TO: Catherine, Andy, Steve

it's time to check your tire pressure.

---

FROM: Steve
TO: Dad, Catherine, Andy

I kinda think I want a daily "dad says" e-mail with life tips.

"dad says at least your car is clean"

"dad says that you can just clear your air filter with a pressure washer"

"dad says make a little extra money by opening a coffee bar"

"dad says just throw strikes"

---

FROM: Dad
TO: Steve, Catherine, Andy

I was thinking the same thing!
Kind of a daily advice thing!
That could be so helpful to you guys! Straighten you out!
Someday, it could even turn into a syndicated column or something!

interestingly, I washed my car yesterday, and sent mom a text, "well, at least my car is clean"
and
somebody at work complimented me on the conclusion of a big important project, on Thursday. I said, "i just try to throw strikes"

---

(I like that my father-- like me-- doesn't take himself too seriously, and sometimes purposefully self-parodizes.)

"Just throw strikes" is one he trots out a lot, and is obviously derived from baseball. He also occasionally tells us to "reach back for something extra" when attempting something difficult (I think he told me both these things before my dissertation defense), which is also a baseball one.

When I decided to write this blog post, I called my dad and asked if there was some kind of origin to the phrases-- I had a vague memory of some story he'd told me as a kid that involved one or both of them. He said, not that he could remember, they were just things people in baseball said, I told him he wasn't much help, and then he started asking me how my home improvement projects were going. (Slowly. There are still a lot of things in boxes in here.)

But once we were done talking he called me back like five minutes later, and he said, "Do you know what 'just throw strikes' means?"

"Does it mean something beyond the obvious?"

"It means don't overthink it. Don't throw fancy balls or anything, just focus on landing each pitch in the strike zone. Don't worry about what's outside your control and get the job done."

I guess I had always thought it meant just strike the guy out, but it's a little different to that. Keep going, don't overthink it. Like many kids, I probably went through a phase where I thought the things my father said were dumb, but I do see its useful wisdom as an adult.

In that way it's similar to a piece of advice my dissertation director used a lot, from Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus (1836):

"[L]et him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this other precept well to heart, which to me was of invaluable service: 'Do the Duty which lies nearest thee,' which thou knowest to be a Duty! Thy second Duty will already have become clearer."

Or put slightly simpler (as I usually remember it): "Do the duty that lies nearest to you, and your next duty will become apparent." That is, when you're overwhelmed by the tasks you have to perform, and don't know what you should be doing, do the thing you know needs doing now, and then worry about the next thing. I've never actually read Sartor Resartus, but I always remember this line from Tom Recchio, and it has-- like "just throw strikes"-- helped carry me through some moments where I've been overwhelmed by what I have to do.

(At the Nineteenth Century Studies Association conference in 2017 I was on a panel with someone presenting on Sartor Resartus, and I told her about my advisor's use of it, and she said really the whole book is satire and not meant to be taken earnestly as my advisor was doing. Oh well.)

#76: What's the best advice you’ve gotten?