Mistakes Our Teachers Make

It seems we learn our best lessons from our mistakes. Do you remember the first time you tried to ride a two wheeled bicycle? You straddled it and, holding onto the handle bar, you put both feet on the pedals and fell over sideways. Oh! I was supposed to push on the pedal with one foot and then bring the other up?  How would we ever know how to accomplish the many things in our lives without first making a mistake ourselves or having learned from another’s mistake?

In many of our life’s ventures, our internal teacher gives us an “F” on our first attempt at doing something. We may even have one or two subsequent “F”’s in our determined attempts. Do we quit or do we persist, having learned from our mistake?

Oftentimes, our internal critic is our biggest obstacle. Have you ever wondered how many clever inventions never came to fruition because of the inventor’s fear of making one mistake or numerous ones?

I believe there should be a hyphen in the word mistake. I think it should be spelled miss-take. Multiple “takes” are often mandatory before achievement occurs. Life is full of endless episodes of miss-takes as our action or plan moves from good to better to best. 

There are many “takes” when shooting a movie before the film is released. For a single publishable picture, a photographer will shoot countless photographs to achieve one perfectly focused, exposed and composed.

  The next time something goes awry, think about the chocolate chip cookie, an ice cream cone and the Sticky Note. While making chocolate cookies, Ruth Wakefield of The Toll House Inn, found she had no chocolate so she chopped up some baking chocolate and put the chunks in the dough. Much to her disappointment, the chocolate did not melt throughout the cookies, but stayed in chip form. Her guests loved her accident: chocolate chip cookies. At the 1904 World’s Fair, an ice cream vendor ran out of dishes for his ice cream and the vendor next to him, making Persian waffles, rolled up a waffle to hold the  ice cream and the ice cream cone was invented. A 3M chemist worked to create a super strong adhesive, but his adhesive failed, being weaker than any previous one. Four years later, a fellow 3M chemist in a church choir was having difficulty with the paper markers falling out of his hymnal and remembered the glue chemist’s failure. The choir member tried the weak glue on his markers which not only held the markers in place, but also allowed the markers to be removed without destroying the hymnal. The birth of Sticky Notes! All miss-takes!

There is only One who never has a miss-take and His name is God. We are imperfect humans who experience many miss-takes when outcomes do not always follow our intentions. But mistakes do not always imply defeat. The next time a failure looms in front of you, eat an ice cream cone and try again!

Worry Is The Dark Room Where Negatives Develop

Negatives are not always a bad thing. My case in point are photographic negatives. Photographers consider a dark room, mysterious for many of us, a magical place. A black, seemingly blank, strip of film correctly processed can produce a myriad of images, often in color. Beauty emerges from the darkness.

When referring to the condition of a person’s spirit, a dark room might also be a negative place. However, unlike a photographic negative, no beauty is produced from the dark abyss. Not surprisingly, the most productive developing fluid of life’s negatives is worry. Just as experts plunge photographic negatives into various developing fluids, we too can be experts at plunging our souls in the baths of negative events or thoughts. Worry can be the process which develops our present situation or future, but it does not produce a pretty picture. It envelops our life in a pall. In the dark room of worry, poor images multiply out of control.

The one thing that can subvert the developing process, whether of worry or a photograph, is light. Light turned on can prove devastating to photographs in a dark room. However, light can also devastate  worry. One results in a tragic outcome. One offers a hopeful outcome.

Filling our minds with positive thoughts disrupts any successful development of negatives. Light banishes darkness. Positive thoughts banish the darkness of worry or sorrow or discouragement in our hearts and minds.

For a photographer, a dark room develops positive, often spectacular, images. For everyone else, dark thoughts and mindsets result in soul images best tossed in a wastebasket.

 Do you want to fill your life’s picture book or your life’s wastebasket? Choose light! It banishes darkness in a home or in one’s soul. Turn on, and focus on, the light of life and banish lightless negativity. Challenge yourself to create bright images to add joy to your life’s photo album of memories.

"If You Can’t Feed One Hundred People, Just Feed One" (Mother Teresa)

So often our attitude is the bigger the better whether talking about a hot fudge sundae or a home or a car or a bandage on a wound or even glory for ourselves. Perhaps we assume the bigger the goal, the more significant the accomplishment. Right?

I propose soul fulfillment is directly related to one’s motives not numbers.

Dreams and goals which are challenging are positive in the sense we are not seeking the easy path toward an accomplishment. Whether we take the easy (most popular) path or the soul edifying path, our goals should be realistic. What are our capabilities? Do we have the motivation necessary to attain our goal, perhaps by stretching our seldom used gifts and talents, or is the dream beyond all realm of possibility? Is our ego too large to take the requisite baby steps as opposed to “I-want-the world-to-take notice” steps?

A noteworthy aspiration, for example, might be feeding the hungry. The estimate of the number of hungry people in the world is an astonishing one billion people. In light of such an astronomical number it would seem totally inconceivable to alleviate the hunger pains of even a minute fraction of those suffering because of inadequate nourishment.

So what is the answer? Let me ask you…how do you climb a mountain? For anyone but an expert mountaineer, it would seem to be an impossible undertaking. Yet for a novice or a mountaineer, the methodology is identical: one step at a time. The same strategy can be utilized to feed the hungry masses. We begin by giving nourishment to just one hungry person. Nourishing one person seems so insignificant considering one billion people are hungry. Yes! Likewise, one footstep up a mountain seems insignificant, but repeated over and over, that one step followed by another and another scales extraordinary heights. Without the seemingly inconsequential first step, nothing would be accomplished.

If each person fed only one individual, the number of people going to bed hungry would be reduced astronomically. What is the significance of only one person being fed? Ask that one person what difference a meal has meant in their life? Remember, the care given that one person has fed not only their stomach, but also their soul knowing someone recognized and responded personally to their plight. The knowledge their life has value is soul food in the truest sense of the word.

And the difference providing food makes to us? We nourish our souls.

The eternally significant question when we reflect on world hunger is how starved is your soul? When was the last time you fed it? Is it emaciated? Jesus said if we feed the least of humanity, we feed Him. When was the last time you fed Jesus?

Most of us are blessed being able to provide meals for ourselves and our families. Keep in mind what we consider a snack would be a feast to someone who is hungry or starving.

If the astronomical figure of a billion starving people seems too high of a mountain to climb, consider taking a baby step. Feed one person in a soup kitchen or utilize the vehicles of national or international charities. One less person will die of starvation

Then, take the next step and engage the help of your friends. The journey toward the mountain’s summit is not so formidable if friends go along.

If you are shy or reticent, imagine the smile on the face of the person you feed perhaps their only meal of the day.  Better yet, imagine the smile your action puts on the face of God!

Every Adversity Hides A Possibility

Have you ever had a week, or month or year, in which it seems every step you take leads to a fall? Do you pick yourself up, either alone or with the help of a friend, and bandage your skinned knees only to fall once more and knock the “Band-Aid” off at which time you discover an even bigger “boo-boo”?

After how many falls, and a life savings donated to the coffers of Band-Aids, do we decide it would be expedient to evaluate the path we have been pursuing?

It often seems only when we become sick and tired of being sick and tired of falling on emotional, spiritual or physical life paths that we refocus our energies on the possibilities of positives emanating from the negatives.

Associated with every stumbling block in our life is the possibility of an alternative path with fewer rocks to trip us up. But first we must become sick and tired of an event before we focus our energies on finding a solution.

Thomas Edison became tired of spending money on candles which melted away and plunged him back into the darkness. He discovered the light bulb. Jonas Salk got sick and tired of people paralyzed with polio and discovered a prevention…. the Salk vaccine.

Positive possibilities often hide, or are camouflaged, within negative situations. However, one must deliberately focus beyond the bad in order to discover the good. All too often we focus on the filth in the pig stys of our lives instead of realizing our bacon comes from them. If it weren’t for rain, we would not have raincoats….or flowers…or an appreciation for the sunshine.

What is a recent adversity in your life? Rather than focusing your energy on pondering the negatives of your situation, reflect on the good which could emanate from it, and expend your energy bringing some joy to your little corner of the world.