The RIght Answer

"How many wrong did you get on the test?" That is the question that most will hear in the real of academia from kindergarten thru college. It's not so much what you learned that is emphasized, it the proximity to perfection and no mistakes that is important. I run into more and more people, who are driving themselves crazy attempting to reach an arbitrary and artificial goal of perfection. Never make any mistakes, never show any blemishes or wrinkles, never admit that you don’t know, never let them see you sweat are the mantras of our time.

But all of this comes with a huge price. If everyone is afraid to make mistakes then there are fewer and few risks that are taken. Heaven forbid that something new that we try or attempt should fail. Yet it is the failure that teaches, it is the mistake that leads to something new. The microwave oven was found by mistake along with penicillin and the vulcanization of rubber to name a few. Had these individuals learned about the grading system or the fact that mistakes are not acceptable there may be less conveniences.

But the greatest loss is the ability to accept and perceive fate and destiny. Numerous people who get fired from jobs will say it was the best thing for them. They wouldn’t have moved on to what they really wanted to do if they wouldn’t have been fired. The mistaken book given to an individual is the book that set them on their course and toward their bliss. The mistaken identity that forced an individual to look at themselves to discover who they really are is not uncommon as well. Take for example Alfred Nobel who read his obituary in the newspaper and didn’t only want to be known as the dynamite king and thus established the Nobel prizes for peace and other fields. Were these all by mistakes, all failures or were they successes? The future holds the keys to our lives. We have to determine if we can accept the out-of-place, the wrong answer and find ourselves in a place of harmony with the universe that is bigger than someone else’s or some institution’s perception of a correct answer.

dana.houck1@gmail.com  Phone 507.339.0045