Brian's World

Identical Errors

I am guilty of making the same mistakes everyone else has.  My attempts at being ‘better’ or not dragged down into the run of the mill state that the majority of us live in seem to have failed, at best I’ve managed to do it slightly better than others.  I think I find the most fault in myself, though I have trouble identifying a specific action or course of actions to blame.  Its always the gradual failures that creep up on you.

When you’re failing or going down spectacularly that’s easy to spot.  The flight attendants are shouting brace and everyone is buckled in tightly with their heads as close to their knees as their slightly larger stomachs permit.  When you creep towards it, maybe taking one step forward and two steps Back, you don’t notice nearly as quickly that your slowly moving further and further away from progress.  Spectacular failure provides great opportunity and motivation for success and reactive counter measures.  Smaller incremental errors aren’t particularly motivating, more likely to produce a simple “let’s not let that happen again, eh” than any actionable plan.

I don’t think failure itself is what worries me, it’s the fact that others become comfortable with this state.  An error state can turn into a building block others can come to rely on or assume is actually your desired state.  Furthernore, errors beget errors; breaking a pattern habituated by others around harder than breaking it alone.

What worries me most is that the status quo stays defined as this suboptimal but functional place.  It works, and isn’t half bad compared to the alternatives, but its far from the end goal.  That famous poet guy had miles to go before he slept, I wonder if he ever got there or ended up falling asleep on the trail.

Good night moon.