Who taught: Seth

Just wing it (source: http://www.kikiquilts.com/)

One of the blogs I follow closely is Seth Godin’s blog. The thing I really like about his blog is that his posts are very short and concise yet they inspire me so much. Sometimes, his post is literally just five sentences but it still has impact on me. So, I strongly recommend to read his blog.

A few days ago, I was reading his post and found an interesting expression that I have never heard before. Here is his sentence.

How dare we, then, decide to just wing it?

Can you spot the expression here? It is “wing it.” If wing is a verb, as far as I know, it should mean “fly with wings.” Don’t you agree? Then, what is “it” here? Complicated… So, before we explore “it” further, let’s examine “wing” more to really feel this expression.

When you see a bird flying away from you with wings, what do you feel or think, in comparison with airplanes? Airplanes take a lot of preparations to be able to fly whereas birds just simply fly anytime and anywhere they want to fly with their wings. They seems like they do not need to even prepare anything to fly. (I don’t know they do need any sort of preparation to fly scientifically. I am just saying what we see and how we feel.)

Having said that, what would “wing it” means? It means do something (it) without any preparation. For example, you and your friend are in a classroom, talking about a quiz. You can say, “Dude, last night, I just slept and did not study anything. So, I will just wing it today.”

Seth said,

If you’re doing important work (and I’m hoping you are), then you owe it to your audience or your customers or your co-workers to learn everything you can. Feel free to ignore what you learn, but at least learn it.

Amen, Seth! I will do my best to learn it not wing it.