Seeking to Understand

There are some people who whine whenever something interesting comes along that has maybe happened in some form before. They say things like, “This isn’t new! It was done X years ago by Y.” Or, “This is hardly an original idea. I had it when I was 10 and knew immediately it was the greatest thing ever.”

Of course I’m not immune to having done this… In fact, I find myself saying things like that a lot and I’m starting to think that I should try to keep myself from doing so. It’s not productive, adds no value, and just brings other people down. Who cares if it was done before? Who cares if it isn’t an original idea? What matters is if you (or someone else) act on the idea and prove it can work or that the idea is better or whatnot. What really matters are the results.

If you have a great idea, just do it. If you see a great idea that has been done, don’t assume you’re the only person on the planet with the immense intellect to notice it isn’t new - you might be missing something. It’s like that classic Mark Twain quote: “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”

This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 9:45 am and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.