One evening, in our early years of marriage, I set out to demonstrate my prowess as a do-it-yourselfer. The task: replace a leaky kitchen faucet with a new one purchased the day before. That I waited until after the stores closed to begin the repair was testimony to my confidence in the task. Soon, I would be her knight in shining armor. No more would she have to endure the incessant and lonely drip, drip, drip throughout the night. Yep, in no time, she’d be in my arms thanking me as we both admired my handiwork. It didn’t quite turn out that way.

I discovered, after disconnecting the old faucet, that the length of tubing from the new faucet to the supply line was short by two inches. Back then there were no all night hardware stores and, to make matters worse, the sink had no faucet valves, meaning the entire water supply to the house was off until a store opened in the morning. That meant no flushing toilets or morning showers. Water for brushing teeth came courtesy of a midnight skulk to “borrow” water from a neighbor’s garden hose. This knight’s shining armor had turned to rust. Finally, well after midnight, my confident exuberance surrendered to confused exhaustion.

Laying in bed that night, disappointed that I allowed my confidence to get ahead of my thinking, I took comfort at least in knowing that Anna could sleep in silence. Anna took comfort too, knowing that in the morning she’d be calling a plumber to finish her knight’s task.

Your thoughts? Has your confidence ever gotten ahead of your thinking about a problem?