Tools are Bridges

I love tools. And not just the kind that hang on a pegboard or live in a toolbox, although I absolutely love those too. I love what tools do. I love that there can be something you don't know how to do, or can't do, and the right tool can completely change that.

In so many ways, a tool is really just a bridge. There is where I am. There is where I want to be. And somewhere between those two places is a challenge.

Get somewhere. Fix me. Connect me. Build me. Figure me out.

A challenge can be an obstacle, certainly. It can also be an invitation. There is something on the other side that we want to get to, and the question becomes, what do I need to get there?

Sometimes the answer is wonderfully literal. You need to drive a screw, cut a board, tighten a bolt, measure something, dig a hole. There is probably a tool designed specifically to help you do it. And anyone who has ever struggled through a project with the wrong tool knows how almost ridiculous the difference can be when someone finally hands you the right one. Suddenly the thing you've been fighting with for twenty minutes takes thirty seconds.

You didn't suddenly get stronger. You didn't work harder. You just found the right tool.

But tools can be so much bigger than the things we can hold in our hands.

Knowledge is a tool. A book is a tool. A class is a tool. The internet can be an extraordinary tool. Experience is a tool. Money can be a tool. A connection can be a tool. Even knowing how to ask the right question is a tool.

And people can be tools too. I don't mean using people. I mean recognizing that none of us knows everything, and none of us is supposed to. Someone else knows something I don't know. Someone has been somewhere I haven't been. Someone knows the person I need to talk to. Someone has spent twenty years learning something that I am encountering for the first time.

Sometimes another person is the bridge.

It seems that we get capability wrong sometimes. We think being capable means being able to do everything ourselves. I don't think that's capability at all. I think capability is being able to look at something you don't know how to do and start figuring out what you need.

What do I already have? What don't I know? What could I learn? Who could I ask? What am I missing?

There is something really empowering about beginning to think this way, because the problem itself starts to look different. Instead of immediately thinking, "I can't do that," the question becomes, "Okay, how could I do that?"

Those are two completely different ways of moving through the world.

Hard work matters. Persistence matters. There are absolutely times when you just have to keep at something. But there are also times when we are working incredibly hard because we're using the wrong tool. Or because we don't know the right tool exists. Or because we're trying to do alone something another person could teach us in ten minutes.

Sometimes we are trying desperately to cross a river without realizing there is a bridge fifty feet away.

And maybe that's one of the greatest things we can give another person, particularly a young person. Not all the answers. Tools.

Teach someone HOW to build something. Teach them HOW to research something they don't understand. SHOW THEM HOW to find information... INTRODUCE them to people. Let them TRY something and screw it up. Let them DISCOVER that the first tool doesn't always work and that sometimes you have to go looking for another one.

The real gift is not solving every problem for someone. It's helping them develop the confidence to look at a problem and believe there is a way through it.

There is where I am. There is where I want to be.

What is the bridge?

-MVierzen, 2026 Aug