Sunday, March 20, 2011

The Joys of Being Wrong


“If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.”
Sir Ken Robinson


You need to try lots of things and be prepared for failures, fiascoes, botches, disappointments, bombs, let downs and catastrophes. It's just a growth process, learning from your mistakes. When you're getting good at this people will often say you're wide of the mark, off topic, off kilter, off message, outside the mainstream, too far outside the box, and just plain wrong. The important thing is to ignore most of them most of the time. The hardest part is to know when to listen to them and when to listen to yourself.

It takes a while to learn to trust your own judgment. Some people never do. When you do, sometimes you will appear (no, you will be)  pig-headed, stubborn, obstinate, quixotic and unreasonable. More power to you. When you are a success in the face of criticism and everyone agrees you did it right, the adjectives will change to more favorable ones like resolute, stoic, firm, determined and maybe even visionary. With luck, this will come when you’re still alive and can enjoy it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love your philosophy Frankness, as I love your photos and blog. Nicely done!

Beverly CD said...

I love this photo and was there when it was taken. I think it is brilliant the way the hard-edged green triangular building extension to the right mirrors, in a way, the triangular organic form of the loan tree. The natural in contrast to the man-made and the implication that nature often survives in spite of the devastation and or decay caused by man-made endeavors.