"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." - Albert Einstein
Most likely there is not a person who any of us can point to who does not intimately get Einstein's quote. Who of us afterall has never made a mistake? But it is also apparent that what Dr. Einstein was referring to was not the benign misspelling of a word on a job application, or an error in our arithmetic while balancing our checkbooks. He is very much commenting on the conscious act of trying anything new we may have never tried before (e.g. a career change, presenting an original piece of music, a radical mathematical equation) and the risk involved and fears that we face when starting out on such a life path, a new adventure, or even embarking on a journey not of our choosing but has become necessary for any of a multitude of reasons to make a life which is different from the one we've been living. In any case, circumstances occur in our lives which at times may reveal an opportunity to literally reinvent the life we live, and possibly even ourselves if we are willing to take on the risk of making a mistake or...even failing.Though seemingly a daunting task, in a practical sense the realization is that everyday we begin over again. In fact, in every moment we begin over whether we agree with it, like it, accept it...or not. We are in a constant process of change since beginning our journeys in the womb to the end of our time here. I'm not about to get metaphysical or enter into some new age treatise on how we attract things into our lives because of the positive or negative thought patterns spinning around in the duality of our minds, which seems to lean towards a belief that if you just "think positively" then good things will just happen for you as a result. Imagine telling this to an innocent prisoner locked away in Guantanamo, or the Japanese whose lives were washed away by nature's fury, or the 61% of Americans who are without work because of the vicious misdeeds of common criminals who control our economic destinies. Could it be possible that if they had only projected "positive thoughts" then these calamities wouldn't have befallen them? I find it difficult for me to accept that on one particular day an entire prefecture of thriving hard working Japanese citizens were projecting "negative thoughts" and the next thing you know...Wham!...a large body of water wipes out a way of life.Sorry for the digression, but I just needed to clarify my intention for this entry, and my personal meaning in starting out into uncharted life territory, taking the risk, making mistakes, learning from our experiences, and moving on in spite of our mistakes. I'm addressing the everyday act of practical living as each of us knows it. So now that I've clarified my mission statement (of a sort) for this blog, I release you while I take a short break and will return later to complete my thoughts. And I hope you'll return to finish reading, and then leave your comments. I'm curious and eager to hear from you. I'll be back soon and thanks for your attention. - David
Most likely there is not a person who any of us can point to who does not intimately get Einstein's quote. Who of us afterall has never made a mistake? But it is also apparent that what Dr. Einstein was referring to was not the benign misspelling of a word on a job application, or an error in our arithmetic while balancing our checkbooks. He is very much commenting on the conscious act of trying anything new we may have never tried before (e.g. a career change, presenting an original piece of music, a radical mathematical equation) and the risk involved and fears that we face when starting out on such a life path, a new adventure, or even embarking on a journey not of our choosing but has become necessary for any of a multitude of reasons to make a life which is different from the one we've been living. In any case, circumstances occur in our lives which at times may reveal an opportunity to literally reinvent the life we live, and possibly even ourselves if we are willing to take on the risk of making a mistake or...even failing.Though seemingly a daunting task, in a practical sense the realization is that everyday we begin over again. In fact, in every moment we begin over whether we agree with it, like it, accept it...or not. We are in a constant process of change since beginning our journeys in the womb to the end of our time here. I'm not about to get metaphysical or enter into some new age treatise on how we attract things into our lives because of the positive or negative thought patterns spinning around in the duality of our minds, which seems to lean towards a belief that if you just "think positively" then good things will just happen for you as a result. Imagine telling this to an innocent prisoner locked away in Guantanamo, or the Japanese whose lives were washed away by nature's fury, or the 61% of Americans who are without work because of the vicious misdeeds of common criminals who control our economic destinies. Could it be possible that if they had only projected "positive thoughts" then these calamities wouldn't have befallen them? I find it difficult for me to accept that on one particular day an entire prefecture of thriving hard working Japanese citizens were projecting "negative thoughts" and the next thing you know...Wham!...a large body of water wipes out a way of life.Sorry for the digression, but I just needed to clarify my intention for this entry, and my personal meaning in starting out into uncharted life territory, taking the risk, making mistakes, learning from our experiences, and moving on in spite of our mistakes. I'm addressing the everyday act of practical living as each of us knows it. So now that I've clarified my mission statement (of a sort) for this blog, I release you while I take a short break and will return later to complete my thoughts. And I hope you'll return to finish reading, and then leave your comments. I'm curious and eager to hear from you. I'll be back soon and thanks for your attention. - David
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