recalculating one's bearings

My old Garmin GPS navigation device -- the one I stubbornly rarely used -- intoned "recalculating" if you made a wrong turn or if you were making a correct turn because your eyes were telling you the device was wrong and you were right. (Some apps still do that.) As if I would know. I was the last person in North America to employ the tool. Why? Stubbornness? Male stereotype about directions? A Luddite gesture? Too stingy to spend the money? All are possible, or all of the above. I don't recall, but no doubt I would have spared myself lots of anxiety if I had used one. I remember a particular incident in 2012. I drove from Syracuse to Charlotte on a maiden voyage with my just-purchased 2007 VW Rabbit. I had nearly reached my destination, the residence of my friend Denis (yes, one N; he prides himself on that). I couldn't make it to the goal line. I traversed a highway back and forth, near the airport, east and then west; or, who knows, north and then south. A boatload of vice versas. It was blistering hot. I was exhausted, spent. I gave up. Totally surrendered. I was in a strip mall parking lot. "Come and get me, Denis. I'm lost. I need your help. Help me." He did. And it was, what, 10-12 miles. Presumably a GPS would have rescued me before reaching that point. But not necessarily. I recently experienced an incident whereby the GoogleMaps app on my phone (smartphones, the death of stand-alone GPS devices) had me repeating a loop of the same streets, trapping me in a nightmarish web of suburban culs-de-sac and winding drives, lanes, and places (scarier by far, to me, than urban equivalents). 

Back to "recalculating." *

What a relief.

It's so judgment-free, so neutral. So matter of fact. You might say scientific, objective, disinterested.

Certainly not conveying coldness or scolding.

Recalculating.

Get some new data or more data and adjust from there.

Whooooboy!

This is not how my personal history transpired, either on the receiving end or the bestowing end. How about your personal history in this regard?

I'm not merely talking of family upbringing. What about education? Being wrong or in error evoked wrath or displeasure at the least. No, this is not an argument for education rooted in touchy-feely, everybody is right, let's not hurt feelings. No, not at all. It's an altogether different perspective, and practical at that. I was always struck watching my older daughter's professional ballet classes. Dancers wanted to be corrected, to recalculate, if you will, to get it right, to improve. If the teacher ignored you, that was not good. Every class was an opportunity to recalculate, which is my way of saying correct and improve. It's not a punitive process.

Exactly 139 years ago, I was a high school English teacher. If I were to do it again, I'd apply the notion of recalculating to writing assignments, such as essays. (As an aside, they're still teaching English as they did when I was young. Foolish. The world does not need more essays on Dickens or Bronte or Shakespeare or Dante. It is of no value in the workplace. I'm for the humanities; they have their place. But writing at work varies from reports to memos to letters to white papers.) In other words, I would allow as many writing drafts as needed or wanted. Maybe the whole semester would be one, and only one, piece of "recalculated" writing. I believe this used to be called mastery learning.

Parents don't tend to be recalculators, nor spouses or lovers. Friends, more so. On second thought, some people do take that approach without uttering the word recalculating. Kudos to them.

What about ourselves?

Do we tell ourselves to recalculate, or do we indulge in an orgy of remonstrance and self-recrimination?

Most likely, when it comes to myself, I'll forget these thoughts the next time I say the wrong thing or perform the wrong action.

Recalculating.

It's not Sanskrit, but it's not a bad mantra.

* Disclaimer and Credit: This notion of applying recalculation to human events and affairs is not my original concept. I heard it from someone else; I can't remember exactly who. So, I borrowed it. Or appropriated it. Imitation is flattery. So thanks, whoever you were/are.