I always think I know better. It almost doesn’t matter what the case is – I have a better solution than the one you’re suggesting or using. Someone suggests something – I’ll think about it, but I probably already have a plan that’s better than that.

For example, going canoeing for the first time outside Washington DC back in 98 or 99 people suggested sunscreen, but I wasn’t a city boy, I could take a little sun and be fine. Didn’t matter how long we’d be outside I don’t need not stinking sunscreen… burned the hell out of the top of my thighs, they were almost purple and it hurt pretty bad for a few days. I thought I knew better but obviously I didn’t.

It takes me making my own mistakes to see what the other person was talking about, I’m not about to just believe people because they said something I have to try it out.  “Don’t touch that stove, it’s hot” I have to touch that thing. “Wet Paint” I just have to know if it’s still wet. “Go to meetings and get a sponsor” I don’t really need that, I’ll be ok ridiculous really. Many of us are like that I guess.

I sit back and judge others too. “Boy, if only they had done it this way, it would have been successful.” or “That’s just doomed to failure” and I give up before they even have a chance to prove me wrong. What usually ends up happening is the endeavor works or it doesn’t but either way, like me, these people learn from their mistake and grow.

That’s important, growing. We have to keep learning, changing, striving to become better or different. But it’s also important to learn from those who have gone before us – if Jake breaks his leg doing something a lot of folks think was dangerous and stupid I should maybe not try to emulate Jake in that fashion.

Ideas and activities can grow and change too. Just because you’ve always done something some way doesn’t mean there might not be a better way or something to make the way you’re doing it easier or faster. If I take an extra step in the beginning that I would have to take at some point anyway, I’m just incorporating it into the task at hand – and saving myself a trip back to it later.

I’m just rambling today… but trying to remind myself I don’t have to be in charge, or right or first… I can follow others, I can let things be as they are… (if I keep telling myself that I might start to believe it right?)