MISTAKES

This post is also taken from the Human Mind book.  It goes into detail to show how the fear of failure can affect ones behavior and what can be done to overcome it.  

 
MISTAKES

The person who does things makes many mistakes,

 but they never make the biggest mistake of all,

 which is --- to do nothing.

(Benjamin Franklin)

In one of my original writings for this book, the next five pages were to contain some of the most beautiful thoughts that I had ever written.  However, I failed to use the draft copy feature on the word processor that I was using at the time and to my great regret, I mistakenly erased all five pages.  It is all well and good for me to tell you not to demand perfection from yourself, but what about this ridiculous mistake that I have just admitted to you?

 

Yes, I was so disgusted with myself over this mistake, that I took the rest of the day off, but there I was the next day back at the word processor again.  One of the many drawbacks to our continued increase in knowledge on a personal level and on a global level for the human race itself, is our fear of  failure and of facing the truth.

No matter how inconvenient or how complicated the telling of the truth can make a situation, in the long run, your chances for success in whatever achievement that you are involved in are in direct proportion to your ability to face the truth.  Unless of course, you are living a lie, or you are a criminal who must avoid the truth to continue to be successful. Or of even deeper concern, if society at large will not accept the truth.

I was so worried all day long whether or not I would be able to recall from memory the beautiful words (at least I thought they were beautiful) and ideas that I had lost in the morning.  But for all I know, these ideas that I am expressing right now are far more important than those that I had lost the day before.  How am I to know whether or not you --- as the reader, would tune out yesterday’s words, but retain forever what I am saying right now? 

Perhaps by admitting my mistake, you have now made a determined decision not to be so hard on yourself for the mistakes that you make also.  That could be a much greater message to give to my readers than any of the lost ideas that I was so impressed with.

In reality, none of those ideas were original.  I had thought about them and written about them before.  I cannot remember enunciating them as precisely as I did yesterday, but nevertheless, it is entirely possible that later in this book I will use those ideas and express them as fluently as, or even better than those which I have lost through my own bad habits.

How do you view the ideas expressed above?  If you allow mistakes to rob you of your self-confidence, you will actually increase your chances of making more mistakes in the future.  If you look at mistakes as a learning process and maintain a reasonable level of self-confidence, your chances of success in the future will be increased.  Better for me to have lost 5 pages at the start of this book and learn from that mistake, then to lose 50 pages in the future with a similar error.

In the television movie called, “The Untouchables” with Kevin Costner, at one point in the story he rebukes a corrupt public official for trying to bribe him.  The culprit warns Kevin that he will be sorry for his high handedness and that he is making a terrible mistake.  Kevin’s response is, --- “Yeah, well I’m making a lot of mistakes lately and I’m beginning to enjoy them.”

When Winston Churchill was finally handed the reins of power in England during the second World War, a member of the previous government asked him:  --- Aren’t you afraid that you will make the same mistakes that we made.  Winston answered, --- “Not at all.”  “We will make a brand new set of mistakes.”

Does this sound like a cavalier approach to a very serious problem?  The unequivocal answer is --- absolutely not.  The individual who has a distorted fear of failure actually increases his potential to fail.  His focus is so completely on negative thoughts that he does not entertain the necessary positive thoughts that are required to be successful.  The correct approach to any fear is to increase your knowledge of the achievement in question.

The shortest answer, as in that which Winston gave, is often the most powerful.  Contained inside Winston’s apparently flippant remark is a veritable deluge of psychological maturity.  First of all he is saying that he has learned from the mistakes that others have made and will do his very best not to repeat them.

He is also saying that he knows that he will make new mistakes but he does not intend to allow those mistakes to rob him of the confidence and action that must be taken in the future.  Furthermore, he is implying that he does not have to be perfect.  His archenemy Adolph Hitler must also make awesome decisions, which will cause him to make mistakes also.  Winston’s job is not to be perfect, but to make fewer mistakes than his adversary does.

None of Adolph Hitler’s Generals could risk disagreeing with him on penalty of banishment from the high ranks of the nazi party, [read Hitler himself] or even death.  In effect, Hitler robbed himself of the knowledge that the truth could have given him.  Thank God that his dictatorial arrogance helped to dictate his ultimate defeat.