A four-hour electrical outage in Ward Hill Friday became a lesson in experience.
William “Bud” Hart, of Haverhill, shares “Success Principles”—ideas for living a greater, better and more accomplished life, and building habits that stick. He also coaches clients to incorporate strategies for boosting their mental and physical performance during everyday living.
If you follow my articles regularly you know I love to use quotes and clichés. I like reciting words that seem to be right for a situation, such as this call I received last week. A friend needed someone to talk to about a problem that was ruining the day. Wanting to get caught up on Friday, after a busy week, the only work this person was able to do was to make call after call to address a major electric power outage. I was on the list because I’ve had some experience dealing with the utility.
Often the most valuable thing I have to offer is understanding, just this, nothing more (as was the case Friday). A cliché immediately came to mind. “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.” This saying was used by Randy Pausch in his book speech “The Last Lecture” at Carnegie Mellon University.
It sounds pretty spot on to me. Understanding is what you get when you don’t get what you want. Sure, you get experience when everything goes as planned and when you succeed, but if you think about it, the truly valuable lessons are learned when we don’t get what we want.
Another version is, “Experience is what you get when you are looking for something else.” No doubt the hope in calling me was to get my know-how.
I can’t tell what my friend may have learned from a day of disrupted plans, dealing with the bureaucracy and lack of response and help from a major utility company (and me). There was nothing I could do to solve the actual problem. All I could do was generally speak to the bigger picture. We all face daily challenges. We don’t always get what we want. Things aren’t always fair. It’s the difficulties that we face that make us better. Experience comes from living and particularly from not getting what we want.
Is there value for all of us in disappointments? I think so.
William “Bud” Hart is a certified “Mindset” Coach, Accountability Partner and Business Consultant. Founder of Hart Group, www.hartgroupma.com.