Neil Gaiman, English author of the comic book series “The Sandman,” said, “Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes.
“Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here.”
I don’t know about you, but I have made plenty of mistakes in my life, so I’m glad to know mistakes have value.
When I was a young mother, I remember driving in a blizzard with my two-year-old son, and sliding into a ditch.
Visibility was zero, and car phones or CB radios were a thing of the future, so I had no way of calling anyone.
We waited in the car for a long while, and I finally decided to go for help before the car was covered with snow and I knew the neighbor’s house was within a mile.
I wrapped my son warmly, and I told him to stay right there on the front seat, I was going for help, and would be back soon.
I pushed snow with the door, and stepped into a huge drift. I shut the door, found the road, and began running.
Luckily, my husband was worried and came looking for us.
He tried to be kind, but let me know, without reservation, some rules of living in the country; one never vacates a car during a blizzard, and never leaves a child alone in the car.
I agreed I had made a mistake, and I certainly learned to not leave a child, a car, or a child in a car during a blizzard.
Bram Stoker, Irish author of “Dracula,” said, “We learn from failure, not from success!” I was a believer.
Mistakes causing no loss or damage are easy to laugh about, and oftentimes, it is the outcome determining if a mistake or genius decision was made.
Mistakes are normal, and we all have a long list. If we don’t, we are in denial.
Albert Einstein, a German-born theoretical physicist, said, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
Don’t beat yourself up when you make a mistake. Learn from it, and move on.
You will need energy for the mistake waiting around the next experience.
Until the next time: Live while you live!
(Jennifer Goble, Ph.D., LPC, is the author of My Clients…My Teachers, and the blogger and encourager of Rural Women Stories: www.ruralwomenstories.com.)
The post ‘We learn from failure not success’ appeared first on South Platte Sentinel.
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Learning from mistakes is certainly the goal, but process thinking also includes learning from success. Just because the result was good, with out understanding one may not be able to repeat the same result. Hence the simple but powerful PDCA (plan do check act) cycle was used by Dr Deming to teach Japan to transform from plastic junk to high quality manufacturing. Process thinking is also the bases for continuous improvement, which is also desired but rarely achieved in the US. Example: failing schools are being paid to improve but rarely do. And of course my favorite is those who think correlation fixes problems. They should all learn this CORRELATION IS NOT NECESSARILY CAUSATION.
Having grown up in Colorado and having some experience with their blizzards, The rule of don’t leave the vehicle comes from the visibility can go to zero with the blowing snow, and if on foot and walking into the wind, you can’t breathe, and or become disoriented and people have walked in circles until they froze to death. If people come for you, they have a better chance of finding a vehicle neat the road than one person on foot that can be in the middle of a field not even near the road. When the car runs out of gas, or the engine will not run to produce heat, and no help has come, then it may be appropriate to leave the vehicle vs freezing to death, but you take all with you and stay together. (I got into a serious blizzard with temps below zero that with out good skills i wouldn’t be here or at a minimum have frozen toes/fingers) If someone ran into a ditch during a snow storm in Michigan, Id say walk for help, the snow is wet, not as rural, people dont watch out for missing people, so help isnt coming.the point here being, best action depends on conditions ( context)
Unless one understands why a behavior or action is void or bad, one can correlate lots. Many wrongly, ie. The mother left the car and help came. Child got to stay in the car and didn’t get wet, cold ,or frozen extremities and help came. So either action resulted in good result. If we go to all electric vehicles, the heat will not last long on battery, with cell phones and GPS, a status can be given and probably no emergiency even in the worse Colorado blizzard. Hence, understanding of all the factors is needed to really learn. I imagine, the cowboy on horseback would have different stratgies, like don’t go out in bad weather!!!
Good points.Thanks for your thoughts!