What Is The Source Of Resourcefulness?

"Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself" – that was Thomas Jefferson's way of saying be resourceful; and the 3rd president of the Unite States epitomized resourcefulness. In addition to being an astute politician, Jefferson was an architect, author, horticulturist, inventor, paleontologist and founder of the University of Virginia. When President Kennedy welcomed a group of Nobel Prize winners to the White House, he described them as the most extraordinary group of talent ever gathered there – with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson was there alone.

Zig Ziglar, well known motivational speaker and author, attributes much of his success to always being able to find a capable hand at the end of one's sleeve. That can be especially true in the kitchen. Soup, stew and meatloaf are dishes based on resourcefulness – as well as leftovers. Resourcefulness also comes in handy when what you make doesn't turn out right. For example, when a little bit of egg yolk gets in the egg whites and prevents a souffle from rising, all is not lost. A resourceful chef would call the flat souffle a frittata.

Resourcefulness is what gave us the TV dinner. It also gave Swanson & Sons a way to use 270 tons of unsold, Thanksgiving turkey. Turkey, cornbread stuffing, peas and sweet potatoes were put in a compartmentalized, aluminum tray. Then the tray was put in a box that looked like a TV. Although the 78 cent TV dinner had a production estimate of 5,000 for the first year, Swanson sold more than 10 million in that time. Swanson stopped calling their frozen meals TV dinners in 1963; but they've been talking turkey – their best seller – ever since.

Resourcefulness is what the Makers Movement is all about. Its aim is to re-imagine uses for objects that would otherwise be thrown away. Because of an unstable economy, what started as a movement for techno geeks became a movement for average consumers to re-use objects. To promote re-use one of the directives in the 2005 Makers Bill of Rights is "The ease of repair should be a design ideal – not an afterthought". To promote this belief, movement leaders met with major manufacturers to request things like their using screws instead of glue and their making schematics readily available – things that would enable consumers to fix what they buy. Today the phrase throw-away culture should be used only for bad yogurt.