If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing wrong.
I suppose the title of this post is worth saying. So, it’s worth saying it wrong. Good thing, since many people do get this saying wrong. I bet you’ve heard people say, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.”
Yeah, that’s kind of helpful to know but, not nearly as valuable as, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing wrong.” You don’t hear that as much. Come to think of it, I might be the only one that says it that way. Boy, that’s embarrassing… unless it’s true.
For the sake of simplicity let’s use these labels:
Version A
If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.
Version A-
It it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing wrong.
This really isn’t a discussion of right and wrong in the moral sense. I do believe there are actions that are morally wrong and that we do take those actions from time to time, unfortunately. That’s where my previous post on forgiveness comes in.
The title of this article is not about morality but encouragement. I think version A is meant as an admonition to the lazy. Version A-, on the other hand, is an encouragement to the fearful, anxious, or unrealistic.
Many, many things in life involve a learning curve, whether it is walking, riding a bike, kicking a penalty shot, having a good marriage, finding the right job, or learning a new language. Finding the right path often involves being willing to take the wrong steps. If we are too afraid of failure (another way to say, “underestimating the importance of success”), we will have a difficult time learning something new. When the goal is important enough, we are willing to put in the hard work to get us there. We just forget sometimes that some of the hard work is the work of tolerating or enduring our own failure, maybe even tolerating the embarrassment or ridicule of failure.
If there is something you really want to accomplish but don’t seem to be able to get the ball rolling, ask yourself if you are willing to do the work of failure. There are a certain number of times you have to do something wrong before you can do it right. Most of the time nobody knows what that number is. We do know, though, that every time you get it wrong that number gets smaller, and that if you never try that number might as well be infinite.
I had a band teacher in high school who told us that if we were going to get a note wrong, make it so bad that he had to wipe it off the wall. He wanted to hear it so it could get fixed. I gave up playing trumpet shortly thereafter and haven’t really touched it since. But I have used his advice liberally recently to learn piano and guitar. Now I enjoy both so much better than the trumpet.
Maybe I just had to fail at playing the wrong instrument first. I guess it was worth it.
Now, what else can I find to do wrong?
David Hamilton
A quick search of the internet showed me that I am not, after all, the first, or only one to say “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing wrong.” Guess I was wrong. Good thing it was worth posting this.
This one really helped me to understand that there are cases when it is actually good or necessary to ‘fail’ at something. I believe society looks at ‘failure’ as weak, so that’s how we sometimes view ourselves, which makes it difficult to try something new or make drastic changes in our life. I like your version of failure better. :)
What really hit hard was when you said……
“Finding the right path often involves being willing to take the wrong steps. If we are too afraid of failure (another way to say, “underestimating the importance of success”), we will have a difficult time learning something new.”
That was a wake-up call. This is really, really good stuff. Thank you!
My Dad had a saying posted in his office: “Measure success by success, not by the number of failures it took to get there.”
I need to remember this.