Trial & Error

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Daily Wisdom – Motivational Podcast – Day 568 – Inspiration: Above and Beyond

It has been said that we learn through trial and error. As a matter of fact, a writer said that, “I have heard that an eagle misses 70% of its strikes. Why should I expect to do better? When the eagle misses, does it scold itself? I wonder.” It’s interesting if you think about that for a moment.

I knew someone who actually was told from his parent, “never make a mistake”, and so this child grew up knowing explicitly that if he was going to make a mistake, he would be punished for it. Now, think about that for a moment. His father never taught him anything else other than the fact that mistakes are not acceptable and by teaching him explicitly what needed to be done, he did not give him the opportunity to make mistakes. As a consequence, this person always felt paralyzed throughout his life and his life was becoming a failure because of his equating mistakes with failure. That’s how life is.

Now, this is not the way we’re supposed to be or live, or think.

Brain research tells us that the human organism learns through experimentation and all scientists know that experimentation means through trial and error, we will find solutions. Actually, scientists don’t even think in terms of errors because they use the information gained in the failure to get closer to the answer.

Did you know that Thomas Edison, for instance, refused to call the 700 attempts he made to invent the light bulbs “failure?” He said rather, “I have succeeded in proving that 700 ways will not work,” and it took him actually over 1,000 times before it worked and that’s also what Einstein once said: “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”

There’s an interesting concept, and there was a study and two writers had actually told the story of a pottery teacher. This teacher had divided in a beginners class. Half of them he told them that they should be making quality pots and that they will be graded on that, while the other half, he told them that they should be making quantity and they would be graded on that. One to make the best one and the other group to make the most. Can you guess which group made the better pots? The quantity group. You know why? Because of trial and error, they improved while the quality group kept getting hung up and reaching perfection which they never learned. This proves that we can’t improve ourselves unless we learn from our mistakes, that’s what life is all about, and you have to know that, you have to realize this. Mistakes are inevitable part of learning and you will cultivate the right trust and get there.

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