The problem is that I’m not exactly sure what they are. The passing of time is the only thing that will actually reveal them to me. As much I want to avoid making mistakes, I know I’m doing some things right now which will just look silly or uninformed once I look back at them. Last night I was looking back at my life in 5 year increments thinking about the things I’ve done, some of the projects I’ve undertaken and how I would have done things differently in hind sight I look back to what I thought was right 5 years ago, and it seems glaringly obvious what the mistakes are. The interesting part is that it is not a one off. It seems to be true again and again – as every period of time elapses, there in the past lies a set of errors. It’s not like I am graduating from mistake making either – granted, they are not the same mistakes, but the process of making them is yet to desert me.
My history is a constant reminder of the truth. Like everyone, at least I assume, I have clear strategic and tactical vulnerability. I used to worry about it, but now I realise if what I did then, didn’t seem stupid now, then personal growth would not have been possible.
Failure and more importantly learning from the failure leads to personal growth. I just wish it didn’t hurt so bad when you are knee deep in the failing part. Nice post Steve.
thanks Erz – I guess we need to keep reminding ourselves of the path, not the parts.
A couple of relevant links I’ve really enjoyed lately…
Econtalk: McArdle on Failure, Success, and the Up Side of Down
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/04/mcardle_on_fail.html
(…and her book here http://www.amazon.com/The-Up-Side-Down-Failing/dp/067002614X/)
My Favorite Heuristic for Evaluating Relationships: The Antifragile Person
http://taylorpearson.me/the-antifragile-person/
Nice – some more bed time reading 🙂
SS