JOURNAL ENTRY 1 :

“I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen”

-         Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment.

The surface level understanding of this quote is that – mistakes are a part of life. Making mistakes is what leads to discovery. You might make fourteen mistakes and more likely a hundred and fourteen before discovering something significant. Mistakes and failures are a part of the process. 

Now this is something we all know and understand although we don’t apply it to our lives consciously every day .

This quote goes deeper than that . This quote is a part of a bigger discussion – (an excerpt from Crime and punishment):

“Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen. And a fine thing, too, in its way; but we can't even make mistakes on our own account! Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I'll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's. In the first case you are a man, in the second you're no better than a bird. Truth won't escape you, but life can be cramped. There have been examples. And what are we doing now? In science, development, thought, invention, ideals, aims, liberalism, judgment, experience and everything, everything, everything, we are still in the preparatory class at school. We prefer to live on other people's ideas, it's what we are used to! Am I right, am I right?”

As humans are we not bound to make mistakes? Making our own mistakes lets us find out what works specifically for us . Experimentation is important . Getting out of our comfort zone is important. It gives us the opportunity to get to know things about ourselves we barely knew . It makes us do things we thought we weren’t capable of .  We are human because we have the privelege to make our own mistakes and stumble upon things we otherwise wouldn’t have discovered . Make mistakes . Make your own mistakes. Fail. Succeed.