As human beings endowed with the capacity of free will we are faced with a profound responsibility and an uncommon privilege. If you’ve lived any amount of time you realize that you occasionally make good choices and every so often you make a bad one. The good choices are as instructive as the bad ones, if you can maintain your perspective and poise in both success and failure.
A mature approach to making mistakes separates the men from the boys. I’ve noticed over the years that great personal progress can be made in the moments immediately following an error, whether intentional, accidental or forced.
William George Jordan put the matter of mistakes in a balanced perspective:
“There are only two classes of people who never make mistakes,—they are the dead and the unborn. Mistakes are the inevitable accompaniment of the greatest gift given to man,—individual freedom of action. If he were only a pawn in the fingers of Omnipotence, with no self-moving power, man would never make a mistake, but his very immunity would degrade him to the ranks of the lower animals and the plants. An oyster never makes a mistake,—it has not the mind that
would permit it to forsake an instinct.
Let us be glad of the dignity of our privilege to make mistakes, glad of the wisdom that enables us to recognize them, glad of the power that permits us to turn their light as a glowing illumination along the pathway of our future.”
The opportunity to make mistakes is in fact a privilege accorded to anyone who seeks to exercise his capacity for free will. Some people are afraid of making choices and prefer to defer their right to others in exchange for security or comfort. Others are driven to make decisions on behalf of as many people as they can get their hands on and the two sides mentioned here tend to come into agreement over time, balancing each other out, but greatly reducing the overall capacity for creative achievement in the process.
If you feel that you have made no mistakes recently, you’re likely not pushing yourself hard enough. When you live on the fine line between the known and the unknown, betwixt that which you’ve mastered and that which is yet new to you, you are bound to misstep every once in a while. That is a good sign! It means you’re moving. Whether it is the right move or not must be discerned but the fact is that you are not stagnant, stuck, and therefore rotting or sliding slowly backward.
Gregory Hake 
Great post, thank you so much – looking forward to the next one!
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For many, the feelings brought up by a perceived mistake can be the wall that stops them. Thanks for unveiling the true creative purpose of such opportunities!
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When you look at a mistake as an opportunity and a privilege, as you and Mr. Jordan have outlined here, then it is a thing to embrace not shun or avoid. We have to exercise our creative power in order to become a creative generator. Here’s to generating!
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Now that’s an exciting thought to me – to journey into the unknown. That implies we are on a path to discover something/many things. This path of discovery naturally leads to an act of creation; we are forever desiring to make something new or better. All the advancements across the ages have followed this trajectory. This not only applies to all the marvels of mankind, but to the discovery of self too.
Personally I’ve learned it’s not helpful to fear the unknown. Tough decisions need to made where you don’t know what the outcome is going to be. Will I succeed or will I flop here? The stakes may be high, but still the principles are the same – you gather the available data, apply all your available powers of thought and intuition, and then take the calculated risk. And then you learn from the outcome. If you can glean a certain truism, regardless of the outcome, then you have just discovered something fresh and new for yourself, and are eager to apply that at the earliest opportunity to corroborate that golden nugget. That previous unknown now becomes more visible, and onwards you go.
You’re right – free will makes this possible. This capacity of ours to act freely carries with it a great responsibility, one that should inspire a great sense of awe into our nature. A gift to be used for the good of all. Instead, it often gets warped and used for self-serving purposes. Posts like this should be part of everyone’s education, at least to give people another viewpoint of what life is, what it offers and what it could be for them. I certainly can look back and see where I would have benefitted from earlier instruction in these matters, though ever thankful I am that they are made aware to me now. thanks for letting me pipe in and also to all your good work!
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It takes courage to live on the edge- that fine line you mention between the known and the unknown. It takes the courage to face mistakes without defending, excusing, or blaming. Just leaving room for the recognition that mistakes will be made is a great starting point!
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“I thought I made an error once, but I was mistaken.” There can be so many reasons for error, and obviously many degrees of mistake, but the key to making good use of mistakes is to be able to face not just the mistake, but the attitude, the error in orientation, that might have produced it. Sometimes a mistake is just a mistake – a flip of the coin that turned out badly. If such seemingly random errors keep recurring, however, one needs to look more closely. It is the patterns in our lives, not just the incidents, that tell the tale, and surely we would each wish that the story told should ultimately be one of blessing and victory rather than cursing and failure.
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The fear of making mistakes for many can be immobilizing. It is often accompanied with shame, guilt and layers of dishonesty. What a freeing perspective to begin a new day, one that encourages movement and individuality. What a difference we can make in the world if freed from the burden we have carried relative to our past mistakes. A refreshing and powerful post!
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Another great series begun! Yay! These posts are excellent inspiration and instruction. Thanks so much!!
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The value of a mistake is learning from it but that requires admitting to it, forgiving yourself and moving on. The tar pits of regret, self pity or fear are the soul killers. The more we accomplish in life the more mistakes we’re apt to make.
This is a valuable aspect of life to examine. Thank you.
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I have made my share that is for sure. Some of my greatest learning experiences in business have come from mistakes, mine and others. As long as the lesson learned from the mistakes are heeded they are valuable to me. When a mistake is repeated that’s when forward movement has stopped and there is an obvious problem in the system or possibly a training issue.
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Great post!
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