The Little Red Squiggly Lines of Imperfection

So many people want to keep a perfect track record. As though THAT was more important than actually doing the job itself. I have stated several times to friends and family; "perfection is a myth". This concept of never being willing to make a mistake is sadly permeating our society. It's not just with the young people, either. Those changing career fields, also seem to have a certain aversion to failure. Granted, there's nothing wrong with wanting to do a job well. That's admirable, though it shouldn't stifle our ability to perform at all.

Those who wish to over analyze a situation will always be surpassed by those willing to "stumble forward". I recall something a friend of mine told me he heard from a former Chief Justice in one of his law classes; "The 'A' students will go on to teach, the 'C' students will do well for themselves, but the 'B' students will make all the money". That just always stuck with me. But isn't it contrary to conventional wisdom? Shouldn't it be the heads of the class who make the money?  After all, they had the best notes! Of course, you know the answer, life doesn't hand you notes. What life does hand us, is a series of lessons if we are willing to learn them.

We can think of countless success stories of famous people who were preceded by a long string of failures. Many times, these people overcame rough upbringings, family members who refuse to encourage their vision, lack of education, or economic hardships only to go on and invent the spinning spaghetti fork, or latest nose hair trimmer. When these people experienced setbacks, did they ask their college for a reimbursement on their tuition or simply try another way based on what didn't work previously?  As Alvin Toffler stated; “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. ” That in mind, why do we seem so averse to learning what life has to teach us?

Many in business have drawn the erroneous conclusion that making mistakes is somehow bad. Is it? Most days, people make mistakes and never even know it. If ignorance is truly bliss, then perfection equals... well, ignorance. To a greater point, we are perhaps most afraid of looking bad to our peers or feeling as though we fell short of the skills of our competitors. But are the abilities of our colleagues and competition that much superior to ours? Or, did they come into their own by just not caring as much about OUR opinions of them? In other words, are they free from the additional stress of what others think, so they just go ahead and "mess up"? It was Thomas Edison who said; "I haven't failed, I just found 10,000 ways that won't work". We all know what kind of a loser he was!

Still, the sense of everything in our lives being flawless, is to what many in America aspire. At what point in our lives do we come to learn that everything must be an elusive 100%? Was it our family, grade school, college or career that led us to form such a judgement?  That's right, I just spelt "judgment" with two "E"s. Though the little, red, squiggly line tells me I 'goofed', I'm just fine with it. After all, it doesn't change what you perceived me to write, nor the point. My advice; don't be afraid to live your life with little, red, squiggly lines!

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