“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers,” said Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, in 1943. Six years later, “Popular Mechanics,” wrote: “Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.”
In 1977, Ken Olson, the president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, commented: “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Bill Gates said in 1981, “640K ought to be enough for anybody.”
They were all kidding, right? But they did say those words. As “Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Plunges into History” puts it: “These are ill-conceived comments on the march of technology by people who watched from the sidelines – and should have known better.”
To err is human, said Alexander Pope. Because we are human beings, we are bound to commit errors. No one is perfect in this imperfect world. Even if your intention is good, there are people who will find fault in what you do.
Authors of The Book of Lists called the errors committed by some authors as boners. Take the case of Carl Sandburg, touted to be “one of the greatest American poets and biographers.” He had filled many newspaper positions, won prizes and awards for poetry, given the world a great biography of American president Abraham Lincoln, and became famous as a singer of American folk songs.
But Sandburg, like any other human being, once made a terrible mistake. In his famous biography, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, he wrote: “Lincoln’s mother was standing at the door of their cabin singing ‘Greenland’s Icy Mountain.’” Quite a feat – the song was not written until twenty-two years after Lincoln’s death!
More often than not, writers are bound to commit errors. In his immortal novel, Robinson Crusoe, author Daniel Dafoe had his shipwrecked castaway to try to salvage some goods: “I resolved, if possible, to get to the ship; so I pulled off my clothes, for the weather was not to extremity, and took to the water” (Italics supplied).
After the naked Crusoe climbed aboard the ship: “I found that all the ship’s provisions were dry: and being well disposed to eat, I went to the bread room and filled my pockets with biscuits.” Suddenly, Crusoe was wearing a shirt?
“If you live long enough, you’ll make mistakes,” former American president Bill Clinton said. “But if you learn from them, you’ll be a better person.” That was what George Washington had in mind, too, when he wrote a letter to Fielding Lewis. “To rectify past blunders is impossible,” he penned, “but we might profit by the experience of them.”
Some people are afraid to make a mistake. But then making mistakes is part of life. You won’t learn anything unless you do something. As Albert Einstein once said, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” Or as John Bradshaw said, “It’s okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are our teachers – they help us to learn.”
But we can learn a lesson from the mistakes committed by other people so history won’t repeat itself. You probably have heard the story of Acres of Diamonds told by Reverend Russell Conwell. If you haven’t, here’s the story:
Although a farmer, Hafid was probably one of the richest men in Africa. He owned a large farm with fertile soil, herds of camels and goats, orchards of dates and figs. Then, one day, a wandering holy man visited his farm and mentioned that huge fortunes were being made discovering and mining diamonds – fortunes greater than even Hafid’s.
This news captured Hafid’s attention. He inquired of the holy man what diamonds were and where they could be found. The holy man said he wasn’t sure of all the details, but he had heard that diamonds were usually found in the white sands of rivers that flowed out from valleys formed by V-shaped mountains.
Hafid, eager to increase his fortune, sold his farm, herds, and orchards. He placed his family in the care of someone else and set out to find his fortune. Hafid’s travels took him all over Africa. Finally, in deep despair he threw himself off a mountain and died a frustrated, broken, poor man.
End of the story? No, for Hafid never learned his lesson well. He made the mistake of selling his land to another farmer who was not so ambitious. One time, the farmer who bought Hafid’s farm noticed a pretty rock in the river while having his camels quenched their thirst. He took it home and put it on a shelf where the sun would strike it and splash rainbows of color across the room.
The same holy man came back to the farm. He was immediately startled by the rainbow of light from the rock. “That’s a diamond!” he said. He asked where it came from and the farmer told him he got it from the river.
The two went to the river, which flowed out from a valley formed by a V-shaped mountain. And they found larger diamonds one after another. There were so many of them, large and small. The land, which Hafid sold in search of diamonds, was actually the land he was looking for.
Some people make the mistake of working abroad to become wealthy. Without knowing it, the real wealth is within their grasp – only if they know how to find them. Hard work, determination, and perseverance – these are the things we need to have to succeed in life. Don’t forget guidance from Someone Up There, too. Without Him, we cannot do anything.
“Hindsight, or our ability to see our past clearly, is a learning function that, when damaged, renders us unable to look at the past to guide ourselves through the present and into the future,” Barbara S. Cole wrote in The Gifts of Sobriety. “Without this ability, we cannot learn from our mistakes. We cannot clean up the wreckage of our actions. We are locked into a cycle of repeating the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.”
