My post last month highlighted the way we sometimes have to find contentment in our present and even future circumstances. In certain cases, it can be harder still to cultivate contentment with the past. Unlike the present or future, we know how whatever we did turned out. If it didn’t end in the result we wanted it to, we usually have a plethora of regrets, especially if we put forth much effort to help it succeed. We might believe that matters would’ve met with the same outcome regardless of our actions, so why did we put ourselves through so many challenges, just to have them count for nothing?
I’m not a science buff by any means, but I did enjoy the experiments we performed in the different classes I had to take over the years. It was always interesting to see the way the different reactions and even the dissections proved the scientific fact we’d read about in our textbooks. Before those experiments were commonplace in classroom laboratories, however, they were performed by actual scientists, who had to make numerous hypotheses and attempts to prove or disprove such theories.
Whether these experiments and the time and efforts they entailed play out as hoped or not, most scientists deem the process successful as long as they reach a conclusion. After all, experiments by design are about learning what you didn’t already know. You go into them with a basic theory, but you shouldn’t expect that it will always be correct. In the words of brilliant Albert Einstein, “Failure is success in progress.”
Failure is success in progress.
Albert Einstein
It’s no secret that life is one big learning experience. No matter how old we are, we’re really performing one experiment after another. Every day that we wake up, we’re faced with new circumstances, even if everything seems the same as yesterday. We might encounter new strengths or weaknesses, boosts or obstacles, and the occasional curve ball we never saw coming. In addition, those around us are facing new circumstances, as well, and that can affect the way they treat us.
Just like in the science lab, we typically have a theory for how each of these experiments will proceed, especially if it’s a familiar practice. We’re prone to expect these experiments to give us what we’ve put into them. If we leave early for work, we anticipate arriving on time, hopefully with a little breathing room. An accident or construction along the way can completely derail that expectation, however, making us wish we’d relented to the urge to hit the snooze button.
Instead of lamenting the ordeal all day, you may find it easier just to chop it up to being your failed experiment for the morning. You put forth a good, well-intentioned effort, but it didn’t pay off. You probably won’t leave late from then onward on purpose, but you may adjust your route or pay closer attention to the traffic report.
Even with bad experiences that last for a lengthy period, we can adopt such a mentality, but it definitely takes more work. As mentioned earlier, we might’ve gone to great lengths to make something work, but it still goes belly-up. Viewing such a dilemma as an experiment can help us see the learning lesson in it. Rather than considering all of our toiling as a waste, we can find value in the steps we took to arrive at the conclusion, despite it not being the one we hoped. We may change our approach to the next experiment or go into it with a better understanding of what we may expect.
All the same, we ought to keep in mind the difference between life and scientific experiments: life doesn’t offer a constant variable. Again, we change, others change, and circumstances change. Thus, we’re better off not concluding every experiment that seems like a past one will ultimately have the exact same result. While it’s beneficial to learn from the lessons we garner, we can deprive ourselves of a positive experience if we veer away from ever repeating a negative experiment. Sometimes, we just need to put our lab coat back on, tweak our microscope settings, and aim for a better outcome.
KarinaBartow.com 