Cut Some Slack

My husband Whitney used to do a lot of rock climbing.

Um, ever since we've had kids, that means that more gym time, like Momentum Climbing Gym in the Heights is where he goes a lot.

Uh, but before we had kids, when we had spare time, he would go out to Texas parks on the weekend and do mountain and rock climbing, and he would go with friends.

And I gotta tell you, the way that you pick somebody that you go rock climbing with is, uh, somebody that is not just a casual, um, rock climber, someone that just enjoys being outdoors.

This is somebody that you want to have a deep level of trust in.

This is, this is somebody that you want your wife to have a deep level of trust in [laughs] because this is the person who is going to be holding your rope taut when they need to.

This is the person who's gotta be able to, like, read the problem.

That's what they call kind of all the holds on the side of the mountain as a problem.

Um, and, and read you and know what you're capable of and when that rope needs to be tightened up and when the rope needs to be let out a little bit.

Because sometimes you have to be able to get a little bit of extra rope to go down so you can go back up a different way or to go to the side so you can continue to navigate up.

That extra rope between the belayer and the climber is called the slack.

That slack is where we get the term cut some slack.

So if you cut someone some slack while you're belaying them, you give them a little extra rope.

When we cut slack for other people, we are giving them a little bit less rigidity.

We are giving them a little bit less, um, stiffness in the way that we treat them and a little bit more grace, the ability maybe to make a mistake and back up from it and then come back a different way to approach from an entirely different angle than the one that they were approaching from.

It's when we hold things a little bit more loosely and we are not quite as strict with others.

Slack, um, might look like with your kids when you know they've had a hard week at school and they forget to do their chores and you maybe just let that go this time, right? Or a spouse that's under a lot of pressure at work and they might have a harsh word for you and you choose not to wage war with it.

Somebody that's not really late for meetings often but then walks in really late and you don't make a big deal of it, right? Or a friend who calls to cancel plans just right before you were supposed to go somewhere and you say, "No worries," instead of telling them how inconvenient this is for you.