about a mistake. :-)

[donq]

(note- I start a new thread so that it will not take time to load this page)

Tonight while we were talking about something, it reminded me of mistakes we made. Here is a story that you may heard of it many times.

Thomas Edison tried two thousand different materials in search of a filament for the light bulb. When none worked satisfactorily, his assistant complained, “All our work is in vain. We have learned nothing.”
Edison replied very confidently, “Oh, we have come a long way and we have learned a lot. We know that there are two thousand elements which we cannot use to make a good light bulb.”

Hmm…Do we really need to know our two thousand mistakes before we know what really works? I’m kind of like MacGyver (from old TV series) in this respect more.

"Everybody makes mistakes once in a while. The trick is learning to live with it."

Why? Because it’s just…two miles. :-)

A group of hunters chartered a plane to fly them to a clearing in the thick jungle. Following their instructions, the pilot returned two weeks later to retrieve them. He looked at the animals they had killed and said, “This plane can only carry the weight of one buffalo. You have to leave the other behind.”
“But last year the pilot let us take two in a plane exactly this size.” They protested.
Under duress, the pilot relented and said, “If you did it last year, I guess we can do it again this year.”
The plane took off with the hunters and the two buffaloes, but the small plane was unable to gain altitude and crashed into a low-lying hill. Miraculously, the men were safe.
When they climbed out to survey the situation, one hunter asked, “Where do you think we are?”
The other looked around and said, “I think we’re about two miles to the left of where we crashed last year.”
(by de Mello, A.)

Okay, that makes us a bit relief. We can make a mistake. Why not? And yes, we will make mistakes again. Because:

“To err is human; to forgive, divine.”
-Alexander Pope

I believe that forgiving ourselves after we made mistakes is the first thing we should do (This also means forgive the other’s mistakes, too.) Because we are not in the conditions to think clearly that time. We have to do first thing first…forgive ourselves/others. And don’t waste our times to find the reasons behind those mistakes yet, at least for s while. Why? The story below will tell you something. :-)

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson were going camping. They pitched their tent under the stars and went to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night Holmes woke Watson up and said: "Watson, look up at the sky, and tell me what you see."
Watson replied: "I see millions and millions of stars."
Holmes said: "And what do you deduce from that?"
Watson replied: "Well, if there are millions of stars, and if even a few of those have planets, it’s quite likely there are some planets like Earth out there. And if there are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be life.”
And Holmes said: "Watson, you idiot, it means that somebody stole our tent."
(by Geoff Anandappa of Blackpool)

And even those mistakes, we have to keep trying, keep walking, should we not? But in any case, we should not do the kind of mistake below. Never! :-)

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says "Calm down. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a gun shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says "OK, now what?"
(Based on a 1951 Goon Show sketch by Spike Milligan)

And as we are walking on our spiritual paths, at least we should never trust a scorpion! :-)

A scorpion, being a very poor swimmer, asked a turtle to carry him on his back across a river. "Are you Scorpion mad?" exclaimed the turtle. "You'll sting me while I'm swimming and I'll drown."
My dear turtle," laughed the scorpion, "if I were to sting you, you would drown and I would go down with you. Now where is the logic in that?"
"You're right!" cried the turtle. "Hop on!" The scorpion climbed aboard and halfway across the river gave the turtle a mighty sting. As they both sank to the bottom, the turtle resignedly said:
"Do you mind if I ask you something? You said there'd be no logic in your stinging me. Why did you do it?"
"It has nothing to do with logic," the drowning scorpion sadly replied. "It's just my character."
(The author is unknown. Maybe from “The Scorpion and the Frog” or Aesop's Fables etc. But I heard it the first time from MacGyver series. lol)

What if we come across those scorpion characters, what we should do, then? The answer is…”Do it anyway!”

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.
Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.
Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten.
Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.
Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.
(The version found written on the wall in Mother Teresa's home for children in Calcutta. Though the Original Version is called “The Paradoxical Commandments” by Dr. Kent M. Keith.)

[LibraMoon]

I like this post. The part of it that calls out to me the loudest is the final part about the 'paradoxical commandments'. Often people ask me, as I ask myself, how do I keep going even when I fail and when others treat me badly? I guess the answer to that is, life is hard, but we must keep going, anyway. It's the only way. Our expectations are not often met, but we must keep trying anyway. We're not as good as we want to be, but we must keep striving and growing, as every time we are as good as we wanted to be 6 months ago, we find our expectations have changed and we're still not as good as we want to be. But we keep going anyway!

Yes, we fail sometimes, we make mistakes, but there's little learning in perfection. All that means, is that we haven't challenged ourselves hard enough. Only if we challenge ourselves, do we grow. And challenges inevitably bring mistakes and failures. That's how we learn.

Thanks for the paradoxical commandments. I knew them before and forgot them. Now I need to print them out and keep them with me always. They're a great blueprint for life! Thank you, Don!

[donq]

Hi Libra,

Thank you, too. Your post reminds me of some song, some poetry.
But I cannot express it into my own words.
So let me borrow it from one of my favorite poets, Su Shi
(Su Dongpo, 1036-1101), a great Chinese poet.
Sorry if it’s a bit too long and has some proper names.


In the autumn of 1082, on the 16th of the seventh  
month, Su Shi and his guests sailed in a boat  
below the Red Cliffs. Clear wind blew gently, the  
water was calm. The boaters raised their wine and  
poured for each other, reciting “The Bright Moon” and  
singing “The Lovely One.”

    After a while, the moon rose above the eastern  
mountain, and hovered between the Dipper and the  
Cowherd star. White mist lay across the water; the  
light from the water reached the sky. They went where  
their tiny boat took them, floating on a thousand  
leagues of haze, in the vastness as if resting on  
emptiness and riding the wind, not knowing where they  
would stop, floating as if they had left the earth  
and stood alone, having turned into birds and become  
immortal. And so they drank and their joy reached its  
height, and they sang beating on the side of the  
boat. The song went:

        Cassia oars and orchid paddles
        Beat the illusory moon,
        Rowing against the flow of streaming light.
        From a great distance my heart
        Yearns for my beloved at one end of the sky.

    Among the guests there was one who played the  
flute, and he played along with their song. The sound  
of his flute mourned, as if grieving as if loving, as  
if weeping as if reproaching. Its sound echoed and  
lingered, not breaking as if a silken thread. It set  
to dancing the dragon submerged in a deep crevice,  
and brought to tears the widow in the lonely boat.

Su Shi sobered himself, and straightening his  
collar sat upright. He asked the guest: “Why did you  
play like that?” The guest replied, “‘The moon is  
bright, the stars, sparse. The crows and magpies fly  
south,’ aren’t these the words from Cao Cao’s poem?  
Looking west towards Xiakou, East towards Wuchang,  
with the mountains and rivers entwining each other,  
densely green — isn’t this the place where Cao was  
beseiged by Zhou Yu? Cao had just broken Jingzhou,  
and was going to Jiangling, sailing west with the  
flow of the river. His boats prow to stern stretched  
for a thousand miles, and his flags and banners  
blocked the sky. Pouring wine, looking down on the  
river, chanting poems with a spear across his knees,  
he was indeed a hero of his times; but today, where  
is he? And how about you and I, fishermen and  
woodcutters on the islets in the river, taking the  
fish and shrimp and deer as our companions, and  
riding in a leaf of a boat, raising gourds as our  
goblets and drinking to each other? Entrusted like  
flies to heaven and earth, as tiny as one grain in a  
vast ocean. I grieve at my life’s shortness, and envy  
how the Great River is infinite. I want to fly with  
the immortals and roam the vastness, embrace the moon  
and live forever. I know that I cannot quickly  
achieve this, and I entrusted these sounds to the sad  
wind.”

    Su Shih said, “Do you know the water and moon?  
The one flows on, and yet never goes anywhere, and  
the other waxes and wanes, yet never diminishes or  
grows. If you look at them from the point of Change,  
then heaven and earth never stay the same for even  
the blink of an eye. If you look from the point of  
what is unchanging, then all things, and I, are  
inexhaustible, so what is there to envy? Between  
heaven and earth, each thing has its master, and if  
it were not mine, even if only a hair, I would not  
take it. Only the clear wind on the river, and the  
bright moon between the mountains: the ear receives  
one and creates sound, the eye meets the other and  
makes color; you can take these without prohibition,  
and use them without exhausting them. This is the  
infinite treasure of the Creator, and what you and I  
can share and rejoice in.”

    The guest was pleased and smiled, they washed the  
cups and refilled them. All the dishes were finished,  
and the cups and plates were scattered all over.  
Pillowing on each other in the middle of the boat,  
they didn’t see that the sky was already brightening  
in the east.


(from Su Shih’s the “First Prose Poem of the Red Cliffs” translated by Pauline Chen)