He looked down at her. Then it seemed an interminable while that he watched his tongue seek words, thinking quiet and swift, thought fleeing  A man. All men. He will pass up a hundred chances to do good for one chance to meddle where meddling is not wanted. He will overlook and fail to see chances, opportunities, for riches and fame and well-doing, and even sometimes for evil. But he won’t fail to see a chance to meddle.

From “Light in August” by William Faulkner

If we replace  “meddle” with” screw up,” we get a very good version of today’s  language. Does this sound familial  to you? It does to me.  We all  get too involved in some task and forget that our major goal is to help someone.  Faulkner never ceases to amaze me with his characters’ down-to-earth opinions and his terrific dialogs in the  English dialect of the South.