“The true measure of a man is not how he behaves in moments of comfort and convenience but how he stands at times of controversy and challenges. “
- Martin Luther King Jr.
If you saw me earlier this week you would have seen a headless chicken squawking that failure is imminent! You see the default setting for my memory is blank, so this being the technological age I have overcome this little challenge by using a variety of machines to tell me what on earth it is I have forgotten. However, as I discovered this week when wireless, servers and mobile networks all crashed I am so reliant on external machines and systems that the removal of them for a few days threw me.
How funny! Especially if you consider that if we go back just 15 years...when I did not own even a mobile phone, let alone a home computer... and I operated my life just fine.
I’m not belittling the technological age. It is useful to have all these machines. Back in the day, I’d hoof all the way from Richmond Surrey to Solihull in the West Midlands for a meeting. I’d be in the region of Bicester (some 40 miles plus from Richmond) when my opposite number in Solihull would be reported to my Richmond office as suffering from flu and the meeting would be called off. Unfortunately there would be no way of letting me know so I’d continue a further 40 miles to Solihull before I knew this nugget of information. With today’s technology I could have just turned around using those 40 miles in the more profitable direction of back to base. Technology is our friend and no mistake... but I was amazed at how bewildered I was this week when my access to it was somewhat restricted.
Wasted trips to Solihull aside, during the unlighted age before the technological advances, I remembered birthdays, I got to meetings both social and work, I learnt about change of plans somehow and I still could display and substantiate an encyclopaedic knowledge of vital bits of primarily useless( but entertaining) information. I could do all that on a default setting of blank. And yet 15 years later it came to pass that I had to use my own memory and not that of all my machines... my first thought was failure imminent!!! Absolutely stupid of course because guess what... I SURVIVED!
You find a way around your nature. You always do. You have to just to survive. Actually one or two blips aside, I did more than that, I excelled, but it wasn’t easy... it took me quite some time to remember about the best machine and system that is entirely flexible and has a stunning ability to learn and learn fast.
What is THAT? I hear you ask! Is it an app on the iphone4?
No it bloody isn’t it’s me, it’s you, it’s us.
Our default setting is not ‘Failure imminent’ (though I do know a very funny person who, as far as I am concerned, is convinced that will always be the outcome no matter how many times I prove her wrong... but I digress). Failure imminent is not what we humans are about.
Yeah, we stuff things up. But unlike a machine which once it has a corrupt programme will continue to do it even to its own demise unless there is intervention... we learn, we adapt, we use tools. We fix it.
It is what we do.
To even entertain the idea that any of us are not capable of overcoming hurdles is so unbelievably stupid; I won’t even debate the point. It is self evident that OUR default setting is to overcome challenges.
Albert Einstein: had autism. He used this to think outside the box and become the by-word for being a genius.
Ludwig Van Beethoven: went deaf aged 20. He used this to make music so beautiful that he remains one of the worlds most accomplished and famous composers.
Pablo Picasso/ Tom Cruise/ Richard Branson: all dyslexic. All three went on to huge success in areas that involved the same skills that supposedly the dyslexia held them back from.
JK Rowling: suicidal depression. Unable to concentrate and tormented by dark thoughts... but wrote the most successful series of books known to publishing.
George Carver: ignorant slave. Educated himself and went on to become one of the finest scientists (bio-chemistry) the world has ever known.
Monty Stratton: amputee. This guy accidentally shot himself in the leg, and then had to have it chopped off. Problem... he was a sportsman who need 2 legs to run. No problem as he made a comeback and won 18 games – on one leg.
I could go on. But the point is clear. If any and I mean ANY of the 8 people named above were machines... their default setting would be failure imminent.
If they were machines it would be clear they have faults and are not as good as the shiny perfect proven method. They would have been scrapped.
But they were not.
They were people.
And people have the ability to overcome.
This is how we made a wheel. This is how we beat disease. This is how we survive. This is how we rose to the top of the food chain. We adapt the world to suit our needs, which is truly more significant than anything any damn machine can do. We may be slow to get there but we overcome.
Failure is not imminent when you are dealing with people.
Remember that the next time the bb network crashes, the BT cable fuses at the exchange, the server goes down with your (unsaved) updated spreadsheets, the wireless broadband fades into the ether. Remember your default setting is overcome.
Because you will.
Because you can.
Because you are people.
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