Jun 08 2008
Getting burned, the road to learning.
When my mother told me not to touch the fire I, like many children before me, touched the fire. When I was told not to stare at the sun I stared anyway. Both burned me in different ways. My hand healed. My eyes will forever have blind spots.
I never ask why. It is my goal to figure it out on my own. I have yet to learn a lesson through simple verbal instruction alone. I must be shown or have to try it out on my own.
Perhaps this leads to one of the more bothersome issues I deal with on a day-to-day basis. Some have referred to me as, “an authority on everything.” However, it is my stubborn way of problem solving things on my own terms and not my belief in my own knowledge.
I admit that most times what I come up with makes no sense to anyone but me. I also admit that when I try to do things my own way that often times I fail.
Last night I wanted to transfer some olive oil from a large plastic container to a smaller glass container. I theorized that I could use a funnel without removing the plastic limiter cap.
Now I knew that the cap would not allow the air out and that if I could not figure a way to allow the air to release that the oil would overflow.
If I had been alone, it would have been a non-issue. However, someone wanted to bet me and if I had, I would have lost. Only by a technicality though, as when I began to tap the funnels up and down on the plastic cap the air would burp out and allow the oil to flow freely into the glass bottle.
Many times our first attempts at things are mere theories needing further research. If I listened to everything everyone ever told me I would have saved myself a lot of pain, time, and frustration.
Had I always listened though, I would not have gained the knowledge that comes from ingenuity.
If another person had not been there last night to remove the cap and I had to get the oil into that bottle by myself, it would not have been done because I could not get the cap off on my own.
At times, my experiments yield positive results, and those times bring me great reward.
It is the accomplishment of the task that is important, or the lesson to be learned that matters:
The route that you take to get there is a technicality.
Experience is often the best teacher. If all experiments worked the first time, can you imagine how much would have remained undiscovered? Even Columbus discovered the Americas by accident!
For me it is sometimes the only way to work out a problem. I just wish those around me could appreciate that fact a little bit more.