Stardate: 20260219
Intro:
This month, we’re putting my third rule for life under the microscope. Almost literally, as I also run a little experiment with it.
The rule:
A mistake only becomes an error if you fail to learn from it.
The experiment? Well…
News:
I may have just made a titanic scale mistake, but I put the Flame & Claw trilogy up on Kindle Unlimited. That means, for 90 days at least, the full e books are exclusively there.
The good news, is if you’re a member of KU, they’re FREE. So go check em out! 🙂
In The Library:
Ok, I’m going to gush over a cozy fantasy that J recommended (Always trust J, she’s the smartest and best person I know).
The Keeper of Magical Things by Julie Leong is a fantastic example of Character over Plot. It’s a cozy so the plot is not profound, but it took me until almost the end to realize the book’s a fantasy sendup of the whole ‘urban professional moves to small town, starts a B&B/Inn/Bookstore/Widget Shop’ subgenre. The book is so much better than that though. The main character, Charity Bulrush is superb and if you’re not in love with her by page three then we just can’t be friends no more. She’s witty, endearing, and by far the best written lead I’ve run across in years.
Leong’s first book, The Teller of Small Fortunes, was really good, but this one is sooo much better, and I cannot sing it’s praises loud enough.
Okay! Let’s take a deep dive into this episode’s rule:
A mistake only becomes an error if you fail to learn from it.
The Good
Obviously, this rule is about not making perfect the enemy of good. Succeeding perfectly is never as good as stumbling along the way and reasoning your way though why you failed. We’ve all heard the old Thomas Edison quote “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work” (of course the way that worked was stealing from Nikola Tesla, but that’s another show).
Nonetheless, you will always learn more from analyzing failures that you will by succeeding perfectly the first time.
The Bad
All too often, society pushes results over process. This makes us all perfectionists who strive to be correct the first time every time and an incorrect response, to be less that perfect, is bad. But perfection is impossible. It’ never achievable and yet it dangles like bait just beyond our reach.
The perception of perfection, the drive to not create errors is good, but wee have to learn to embrace being wrong as a learning experience of we’re all gonna wind up feeling like failures. The opposite of perfection is NOT failure. It’s wisdom.
At least i think so. But maybe I’m wrong. Cool, a chance to learn. 🙂
The Fugly
Success doesn’t prove understanding.
Want an example? What’s two plus two?
Y’all said ‘four’, right?
Why? Not ‘because that’s correct’, but WHY is it correct?
Go forth and learn.
Cool! We’ve hit March! In like a Lion, out like a Lamb! I can’t wait for spring, I’m sick of being cold all the time.
So! Next month, we see how the KU experiment is going, we also examine the greatest lesson Batman ever taught me.
And now, the obligatory passing of the hat…
- Hey! Did you know you can get this post in your email, too? Sign up for my mailing list and you’ll also get a download link for the first chapter of Peacebreaker FREE.
- Also, by becoming a Citizen of the Galaxy you can see the stories I’m working on BEFORE THEY’RE PUBLISHED. Get a monthly peek under the hood for way less than a cup of coffee.
See you in April!
-Dev