DO YOU MAKE MISTAKES ?

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4289, 23 February 1901, Page 3 (Supplement)

DO YOU MAKE MISTAKES ?

IF YOU DO, BE CONSIDERATE ■. WARDS OTHERS. “Show me a man who has made mistakes, and I will show you a man who has made progress.” That wa« the remark of a talented writer and keen observer, a man full of tho wisdom born of experience and cominonseiise, and it teaches a muchneeded lesson of tolerance and moderation, at the same time as it affords a gleam of encouragement for the timorous.

As a general thing, wo aro all prepared to subscribe to the statement that no one is infallible, but it is a common failing with a section of the community in a manner which, says as plainly as the spoken words, “Every man makes mistakes—except mo!” To our mind, such an attitude is absurd. Pride and fear ate the causes of this position. Such persons imagine that by frankly admitting an error of judgment they will lower themselves in the estimation of both superiors and inferiors, and that tl>i s will entail a depredation of their services on tho nart of the former and will cause them to Jose their grip on the latter. But how does the matter rcal ly .stand ? There arc two courses open to us in such a circumstance, namely, to stick stubbornly to what we have done as being the right thing, or to own up. In our opinion, ho wno adopts the first of these courses will lose more than he who prefers the latter. With a few exceptions, superiors will remember their own experience when, in conscientiously trying to do the r work, they made a blunder; and inferiors ipust not be credited with <o little intelligence that they are unable to see through our attempt at bluff. Moreover, everyone is bound to adm'ro a. mait who has the moral courage t-o own up.

In the way of tolerance, tho abovequoted words teach us not to jeer, after the common fashion, at those who make a mistake. We may safely challenge any one of tho successful men of tho day to say that they have never committed an error of judgment; we may go further, and say that their very mistakes have contributed to their ultimate success. Wo learn a great deal by-the mistakes we commit; wo use them, like the steps of a ladder, to assist us in getting higher. It must be so. Life may be compared to taking a journey under a long tunnel or arch, with uneven ground and with a feeble light here and there, for we are treading a path which is unknown to us, and the experience of others can only serve us—like the lights in the tunnel —at irregular intervals, tho lives of two men never being exactly the same. As we walk we shall t rea d on stones that slide from under our feet and nearly throw us over, or wo shall slip into a hollow; we cannot help tins, for we do not know the ground.

If we are wise, we shall make use cf the lights, and as we go on we shall. profit by our own experience and feel our way with our feet, recognise a similarity in the configuration of the ground and so on, thus making our path more sure. Everyone must slip occasionally under such, conditions; therefore, why laugh, at others? It was against this intolerance or want of consideration that the woi-ds were chiefly directed, and in this sense they should be especially taken to heart by all. No one likes to be laughed at; this want of consideration has caused many a man to be stubborn and persist in a course which he has found to he wrong, and has led him to disaster. But there is, further, a gleam of encouragement in the utterance to those who are ultra-sensitive about making a mistake. Such people often lose excellent chances through fear of perpetrating an error—not that they fear the result over much, but because they dread the actual commission, of the mistake.

The words of Sir Walter Raleigh—- “ Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall”—are applicable to them; they hesitate to undertake work which they believe they are capable of performing, lest they should not do it exactly as it ought to be done, after all. To tha“e persons the remark appears to say “every man who tries t° get on must make mistakes; do not hesitate merely i;n that account.”