138"Onlythrough mistakes can there be discovery or progress."
Asthe old saying goes, 'Failure teaches success'. Mistakes and failures playgreat roles as stepping-stones on our way to both social and individualsuccess. We should realize their value and adopt correct attitude towards them.At the same time, some other factors are also helpful for progress anddiscovery which cannot be neglected.
Standingin the doorway to new discovery or progress, we usually fall completely lost to pick a right way from countless ones. Even thoughthere are more than one correct choices, we cannot
differentiate them exactly from the wrong ones at the beginning. So mistake isunavoidable. It's the mistake that tells us we've taken a wrong way, so we areable to turn a new direction and move one step closer to the goal. Many famousdiscoveries in science, such as explosive by Nobel and light bulb by Edison,were just made through mistakes again and again. Individuals, similarly, canlearn by daily mistakes and achieve progress and perfection. In this sense, wemay conclude that
'only through mistakes can there bediscovery or progress'.
However,mistakes never assure the discovery or progress. To receive the gift frommistakes, we must take pains to analyze them just like gold diggers wash grainsof gold out of sands. Through mistakes, we still need hard thinking and workingto receive any discovery or progress. No pains on mistake, no gains from it. Inother words, it's insane to deliberately make more mistakes simply for moresignificant discovery or progress. Wise men learn by other men's mistakes;fools by their own.
What'smore, there are other means through which discovery or progress can be made.One is the desire for perfection. It's a sustained motivation for progress andinnovation. Take personal computer and cell phone asexamples. They are created from not mistakes but improvement. Progress intechnology or social institution is often like this. The other one is cravingfor knowledge. Many momentous discoveries in science are made because of it,such as relativity theory by Einstein. The third one is competition. Progress in business is usually achieved by competition, as well as technical development.
Thus,although mistake is an important source ofdiscovery and progress, we should be always open to other motivations which canpush us forward. After
all, only the wisdom andhardworking will lead us surely to discovery or progress through whatevermeans.