Life as experiment

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the
better.

        – Emerson

One of the stories that my family likes to tell on me is when my mother found my three year old self in the bathroom, making soup/mess/goo from soap, shaving cream, toothpaste and water in the sink.  When asked what I was up to, I replied:  "Look, Mommy!  I makee sper-e-ment!"  (My Dad was a scientist, who often spent time "makee sper-e-ment" in his lab at the university, so no big surprise at where this idea might have come from!)

Later on, as a college student, teaching science to elementary school aged camp kids one summer, I quickly found that all children are really natural scientists:  why is the sky blue?  what happens to the sun when it goes down?  why is it summer?  Great questions!

In my young working life as a scientist (and as a human being), I later learned (often painfully) that the greatest insights and breakthroughs came through a "failed" experiment – that is, learning through trying something that it didn’t work as I thought it might.

I notice, though, that something seems to happen to many of us on our way to becoming a "grown-up" – we stop asking questions, and often we stop experimenting.  We fear "failing", looking "dumb", not "knowing".

The cost to not experimenting may not initially appear great – in fact, it may seem easier to follow the hypothesis we feel more sure about.  We are often rewarded – in school, at work, in our families  – for knowing "the answer".

But I also notice what we lose in stopping that experimentation process – the wonder, the possibility, the novelty, and learning.

So, my challenge to you this week is:  experiment!  What do you have to lose?

—
What experiment are you longing to run?
What would you gain by experimenting more?