We all make mistakes. Even with the most information we can gather, the greatest care in planning, and the best of intentions, we make mistakes. That's simply a part of what it is to be human.

But this is just as important. The world can forgive most mistakes. Most reasonable mistakes aren't completely self destructive. They're part of the process. And the world is typically even more than forgiving. It actually often rewards our mistakes in an interesting way. I talked with a man the other day who admitted making a great many mistakes in his career, and his account of them was both very funny and telling. What didn't work, or even went terribly wrong, often set him up for what did work, and worked magnificently.

We're here to try things. As Emerson said, "Life is an experiment." Make as many good experiments as you can. Sure, many will be mistakes. But from them we can learn. And they can often have oddly good consequences we never could have anticipated.

This adventure we're on can never be completely planned. It just has to be lived.