When you just have to do you, there can be the risk factor of disapproval. If you have ever persevered to understand, learn, or accomplish something although feeling no one else understood why, that “do you” strength most likely kicked in.
A former student of mine once told me of how a country worked so hard and spent actual funding to create a pen that actually can write in space. Another country, then, happened to ask why we couldn’t just continue writing with a pencil.
Rolling on the floor, laughing out loud! (For those of us who actually had to find out what ROTFLOL back in the days when these first started showing up in text messages, there’s the connection and my humorous attempt to use what I felt was an appropriate time to put such acronym to good use.)
I never bothered proving the actual truth of that story as the plausibility of this actually happening between two countries was far more amusing than I cared to prove of whether or not it actually did happen.
Talk about a drop the mic moment where I can only imagine such a genius point given and received for such thinking that surely must have silenced a room! To think, not another penny used for an advancedwriting device! To think further, how many may have jumped onto the task of creating essentially, a gravity defying pen, until someone suggested to stick to what we already had to use.
And yet, why do we hunger for greater or newer innovation?
Being with children all around me, whether my own or those that pass my way throughout the years I’ve taught or volunteered to help, I know and have witnessed endless moments of hunger or desire for more too well.
Although tickled to admit I’ve quite partaken in the eagerness for new discovery either directly or vicariously through young minds around me, l, myself, have had to push through judgments to get to the learned part.
It is with children I find most comfort in being innocent in my tries. Even with much needed internal laughters to humble my own mental narrowness, children are quick to give you words of support, knowing and empathizing you meant good by your very attempt to try.
Sadly, how many of us grown (children) have been scorned so many times we’ve forgotten how to be so forgiving with one another?
The most underlying truth of eventual expertise starting within the silliness of having moments of an opposing feeling of Eureka must be embraced. Otherwise, how does one conjure up strength to persevere?
As quiet as Sir Isaac Newton was known to be, surely he laughed to himself. I push further to think Einstein, Socrates, and all brain and ego found in between, most definitely caught themselves in quiet subjection to the OOPS! of life, talking to themselves, reciting with a grin in amusement of the mind’s intoxicating, wide-arrayed concoctions.
While some of us would respectfully not categorize ourselves to be within the confines of higher activated brain matter, at any level, there can be stories to share of moments where we thought a little too certain of ourselves.
Speak for me, myself, and I. Yes?
I recall spending a day visiting schools with our school principal and vice principal where I found myself starting off in one of the school’s small meeting rooms with just one handful of others. Keurigs just started to become the zeitgeist machine at that time and I had never used one.
While others were arriving, commingling with one another, I thought to myself, “Let’s learn. I’m going to James Bond this thing.” (My way of pushing through anything I may not completely know how to do or use, but openly exhibit the confidence to just go with the flow, figuring out as I go along.)
I placed a coffee pod into the obvious compartment and made my choice for it to start brewing. I stood there as others began to take their seats, quickly starting to wonder why my coffee had yet started to brew.
Come in the introduced principal of the school who just happened to take note of one, me, standing by the Keurig, who, me, when approached, explained my need to stand there and wait.
The principal pushed the top down to secure the coffee pod, hit a button and, Voila! That me received her first personal lesson on starting a Keurig by, coincidentally, the very person leading that morning.
Having given my thanks, my self proceeded to her seat with my self’s newly brewed coffee. (I’m not one to drink coffee early in the morning, but the Keurig had Jezebeled my eager desire to delve into its world that morning as others took to their seats.) I quietly walked over to my seat, settling my self’s cup of coffee in front of me on the table.
Me, myself, and I were now ready to join the rest for the meeting as I proceeded to sit down, joining all who had already settled in, still commingling. Like some unannounced cue, as soon as the school’s principal took a seat at the end of the table, all shuffled to get their laptops out, presumably to take notes.
Me and myself chuckled in silence. What was I doing? I picked up my self’s nice cup of coffee as me continued to quietly take a sip. If my angel was doing that ROTFLOL, my heart, mind, and spirit was humbly taking a bow as my body sat astute, listening. Just listening.
I brought no laptop.
Our principal had brought a laptop. Our vice principal did, too. I, on the other hand, was that one who was still excitedly thinking back to how the Keurig works.
“I actually know how to use a Keurig now!” I exclaimed in my own silent thoughts, looking to be focused in on the purpose of the meeting.
Me and myself sat in silence. I did the James Bond thing and just kept cool.
While M would have looked at me with scorn as many in character, my James Bond day would have been a peaceful one. Trial by error with no cars crashed, no lives lost, and no feelings hurt. My ears were happily listening. After all, I just learned how to use a Keurig.
Best of all, the meeting started ahead of time.
With ego set aside, can not trials by several errors start young and continue henceforth to get us at the comfort of embracing fault’s inevitableness in great attempts to achieve eventual excellence?
Shall we not have the desire for perfection without pressure in the pursuit for success, accepting much required humbleness along the way?
Have we not arrived at excellence without laptops out, with just a simple cup of coffee at hand? Whether done inadvertently or not, what would all outliers suggest?
The thin line between profoundness and well, stupid, is between the 999 times you look like your elevator doesn’t go up to where people find you unreachable at the penthouse, claiming to all of a sudden have always known and believed in you upon your announced successes.
Who’s stupid then?
Thomas Edison and other quietly renowned players? The Wright brothers? Mr. Reese? How many believed in them and all others historically acclaimed today during their process toward eventual successes?
Children remind me of this: Let there be accepted judgment while we grow. Otherwise, that fear of judgment may well stunt any possible growth at all.
Sitting in that room amongst all who clearly learned the unspoken rule of having laptops out during a meeting (and never try something you didn’t know how to use right before), I most likely got the outlier label (who just learned how to use a Keurig!).
I see in the eyes of a child such resilience. Knowing that while you may stand out as the one without the new pair of shoes or coat to wear, having walked in, stumbling, hearing perhaps a snicker from eyes refusing to look your way, you can hold your head up high by choice.
No one ALWAYS knows your intent or purpose. Should we not remember to be okay with this throughout our individual journeys?
Funny thing was, by the time we had ended the short meeting and started to walk around the school to visit classrooms, even with a pencil and notebook paper, I couldn’t think of anything necessary to write. I was more enthralled by the walk-throughs, seeing majestic works of students and teacher interactions in classrooms.
Shall we not understand the joy of discovery for one to own is far more priceless than what we attest as one’s deemed greatness? Is it not okay to just BE sometimes in the midst of the grind to fulfill all else of our meant duties?
Does not the 100 percentage error immediately change the very moment we get something right even if we have gotten something 999 times wrong?
Does not getting something right once change the outcome from unsuccessful to, well, Eureka! By golly, you’ve got it!
Does not the end result make the product? Does not the learning lead to the understanding? Is not all preceding trials errors first, but with each still holding potential to eventually get right what one hoped for to do just that?
And once we do, have we not continued to have the desire to keep going? To keep improving? To keep on keeping on?
Have we stopped developing better cellular phones, computers, or automobiles, to name a few of ongoing upgrades between companies worldwide, just because someone answers when we hear a ring, words are typed and printed, or one is driven from one point to another?
Have we found shame in trial by error?
Could the observational truth be, we bask in the glory of productivity and ongoing improvements of any kind? After all, why do we buy phones more complex than a ring and an answer?
Our minds want to learn. Our minds want to expand. Our minds want to understand what it doesn’t. Does not our actions entail so?
The avant garde of today will be the history of tomorrow.
Whose names will replace those we speak of today?
Of those spoken of, were they not curious as children before we ever knew their names? Did they not get something wrong at first before getting it right? Were they flawless to their journey towards media acclamation?
Not stopping to learn how something works because others perhaps dared not or could care less; does this suggest your own curiosity or desire should be denied of pursuance?
Why? Are you afraid of judgment by a handful of those around you? Should one not take the opportunity to learn when given a chance? Shall one follow in cues with all the rest to create peaceful conformity? Is that the norm creating collective peace or a collected piece of you subjugated to the accepted norm?
Just because pencils can write in space, should one stop making pens that can, too? Even if there are those like me, myself, and I who ROTFLOL having heard the story of such debate?
Zero Gravity Pen. They do exist.
Do you.
