bad-good-juxtapose-life-family-ideas

 

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“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”

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George Bernard Shaw

 

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“Mistakes are the portals of discovery.”

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James Joyce

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We all make mistakes.

 

But today is about choiceful mistakes.

 

people crowd ideas together friends waitbutwhyOk.

 

It is about doing something and then enduring the inevitable gauntlet of “why did you do that?” and “whoa, that was a mistake” or even “I am not sure I would have done that” second guessing questions.

 

And while mostly well-meaning <albeit in today’s world we would criticize the way Jesus put on his sandals in the morning> most truly do not care about the decision maker’s fate.

Nor do they, or can they, completely put themselves into the decision maker’s shoes.

 

The struggle, with everyone <myself included>, is you assess a ‘mistake’ through your own eyes and your own brain. We naturally have self-interests and we weigh our own self-interests as we view the decision we will inevitably judge.

 

I sometimes think we miss the bigger opportunity.

 

People make decisions all the time. And for the most part … if they have experience and they have some smarts … the decision is well intended and thought out well enough that repercussions are assessed <the ones you can envision> and … having made some of these decisions myself … you prepare yourself as well as you can for the unintended consequences.

So let’s leave the decision makers, the ones who make the mistakes we are judging, alone … they have made their bed and they are as comfortable as they can be laying on it.

 

That leaves Us.

 

Yeah.

The rest of us.

 

Instead of judging maybe we should be using their decision as a portal of discovery.

 

 

The toughest decisions to assess are the ones that practically look like a huge mistake but also appear to stand upon principle. Therefore we get a little confused about what is most important and it just appears to us as one big blob of a mistake.

In most cases, in this situation, we attach the infamous “I understand why but I wouldn’t have done it that way” non sequitur.

 

And that is biggest portal of discovery we should walk through.

 

I wouldn’t have done it that way.”

 

 

thinking ideasI am going to generalize here but I would suggest that anytime this phrase is uttered the thinking behind it will include some ‘hedging.’

 

You want a little of this without having to endure a little of that.

 

In other words … you want it both ways … you want to stand upon principles without sacrificing anything.

 

Now.

 

If you want to talk about mistakes … there is one right there.

 

Mistakes half made are the worst fucking mistake you can ever make.

Look.

I am certainly not suggesting everyone should be scanning about seeking the portal to some spectacular mistake every single day.

 

But.

 

Sometimes.

Some days.

In some situations.

 

Principles outweigh pragmatism and we shouldn’t dismiss this as some mistake ROI ideasblob. It is a principled mistake <in our eyes> with unacceptable practical repercussions <in our eyes> and principled decision <in their eyes> with accepted practical repercussions <in their eyes>.

 

And in viewing it that way we most likely will never change our opinion with regard to ‘the mistake they made’ but maybe … just maybe … we take a moment and say “where is my principle line?”

 

And that, my friends, is a portal worth discovering.

 

 

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Written by Bruce