Mistakes - Saad Siddique (Batch of '17)

Biology and Psychology have always gone hammer and tongs on the composition of this two legged social animal that has ever since day one, done wonders and at the same time did many bloopers too. Biologists claim that man is a formation of some flesh, a few bones, muscles and bit of blood, whereas the psychologists term man a fine blend of these biological attributes along with some unseen characteristics; anger, determination, fear, hatred, affection, suspense, jealousy, adventure, aggression and so on. Both schools of thought are as true as 6 and 9 for two people looking at it from their own points of view.  Broadly speaking, man is not just a piece of flesh. He is known for his unseen features which describe his character and terms him good or bad likewise, unlike the animals that are looked upon for their physical strength like the lions, tigers etc and some for various qualities like dogs for smelling, eagles for their sharp vision and so on. Man is basically known for his hidden traits, in other words his character. Apart from all features, the most distinct one is struggle; to strive for something.

Man, in the race of life, goes through a series of actions.  Some of them prove good for him and a few of them make him repent, at times even for ever. Such activities make him sit around and ponder over the mistakes which sometimes can even go adverse. To some, mistakes are the ones which obstruct man’s progress, where as some wise men take mistakes as a blessing in disguise as according to them, mistakes give man the right direction and path to follow. A series of mistakes is called experience, which is the pre-requisite for any sort of job around the globe. Marriage is the only “Job” which does not require any such know-how and experience. Repetition of mistakes leads man to perfection. But it surely does not mean to incur mistakes deliberately for excellence. We can even learn from the bitter experiences of many around us.

The most appreciable aspect of man is that after committing any fault, instead of painting it with lies and false statements, he should come clean for even better performance in future. This feature has lead many legends to be so. Had Federer not learnt from his wrong shots in his initials defeats, he would have never made it to the grand slams and many such more tittles. Same was the case with Imran Khan and some leaders too who did even better after committing some gaffes at the initial stages of their career. Unless any product is not tested for its short comings, it’s not launched. But despite a series of tests while in its final phase of production, many products have customer complaints which in other words are the company’s ‘mistakes’.  Those mistakes are then taken into consideration and all the short comings are removed. This is how multi nationals deal with their ‘mistakes’. In other words, had there been no mistakes, such best sellers would have never gone well.  In short, like the products mistakes make a man “a true man.”