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!