“Square your shoulders — be a man! Complaining about what you don’t have or can’t do is like telling the Lord ‘No thank You’ for what you do have and can do
Maya Angelou feels the same way about complaining that my boyhood best friend and mentor, Jaybird, did.
Her grandmother owned a country store in Arkansas, and had a few customers who were chronic complainers, but no matter how tough things got, her outlook on life remained positive, and she wanted to instill that attitude in her granddaughter.
Once, when one of the worst bellyachers entered the store, she told Maya to listen. Sure enough, the man whined about everything — work, weather, and so on.
When he left, Maya’s grandmother said, “Sister, there are people who went to sleep last night, poor and rich and white and black, but they’ll never wake again. And those dead folks would give anything for just five minutes of this weather or ten minutes of plowing.
“So you watch yourself about complaining. What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it.”
The lesson became a guiding principle of Maya’s life.
Jaybird never had the inimitable command of words that the great writer Maya Angelou possesses, but his wisdom was just as sound as hers.
Whenever I complained — especially if I used the word “can’t” — the wise old black man would always say, “Dey kilt ole Can’t, and whupped ole Couldn’t ’til he said he could.”
If I had a dime for every time he said that to me! It was so indelibly pounded into my head that to this day, decades after his passing, I still stutter when the word “can’t” is about to come out of my mouth.
One warm spring day many years ago, Jaybird forced me to think positively. It was cotton-planting time on my father’s Mississippi Delta farm.
In the past, I had always left the tough decisions to Dad, and was content just to manage the labor, equipment, and chemical applications.
But that spring, following surgery, Dad was bedridden. The responsibility for getting those seed in the ground was on my shoulders, and I was scared to death. Any wrong moves at this critical stage of making a crop would haunt us throughout the growing season, and could eliminate any hope of coming out ahead at year’s end.
Looking across all those fields, I began to shake my head.
“Jaybird, I don’t know what to do or where to start. I just can’t….” I was interrupted instantly by those same words I’d heard over and over again. And then he said something else I’ve never forgotten.
“Square your shoulders — be a man! Complaining about what you don’t have or can’t do is like telling the Lord ‘No thank You’ for what you do have and can do. Change your attitude. What you are facing ain’t a problem — it’s an opportunity.”
I planted that crop, and many more, and whenever I was besieged by uncertainty, doubt, and fear, Jaybird’s words — as they still do — began to echo in my mind: Dey kilt ole Can’t….
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
