My soul correction is “Forget Thyself“.

One aspect of this soul correction is overconfidence. I have to invent tricks to counter it, but, from time to time, it creates hell in my life… like right now.

You know I have been working on this human biting mites, or said in another way: microscopic mites that bite humans, live on and in humans, torture humans; avoid detection, so doctors don’t know about them, blame chemicals, viruses, allergies, infections, etc. to cover up that they have no idea.

Well, if I count how many times I was sure that I got the solution, only to see that a. it wasn’t a solution yet, b. that my solution made more trouble than I had before, c. to stop doing what I knew worked, and declared victory prematurely.

I could probably count more than there are fingers on my two hands.

Now, I am sure you say “thank god I am not like that” but you are probably kidding yourself: it is as human as anything, to jump into conclusions.

The art is not to never jump into conclusions. The art is to stay awake, stay aware, and admit the mistake. To go back to the drawing board, and continue looking, or to start all over again.

I told you I was a scientist by nature, and many scientists are this way. This is why of 135,000 pharmaceutical submissions a year, only a handful of medicines pass the muster…

So, if you are like me, jump into conclusion, know when you don’t… don’t try to change. Try to learn how to be someone who can make corrections.

You see the shortest distance between two points is a zig zag. Not on the drawing board, in real life.

The easiest way to see this is sailing.

If you want to sail from point A to point B, listen up! is to first start moving.

A vessel that is not in motion cannot be directed at all. You need to make the vessel move, and then you can use the rudder… steering wheel, correction, whatever you want to call that “thing” that you operate to change directions.

So now the vessel is moving, so you change directions, and now the vessel is crossing the imaginary straight line between points A and B, but at least it’s moving. Now you can zig-zag your way to your goal, to your destination.

Most people are afraid to get started, because they don’t want to make a mistake. The don’t move, waffle, hesitate, plan some more, ask more advice, talk some more… because they can’t see that the only way to do anything is to start moving, start moving to the wrong direction. And be masterful at course-correction…

Of course, one of the reason people don’t want to start in the wrong direction, because they know that they get all busy doing the wrong thing: they know that they can’t keep a distance between themselves and the project: that they don’t have an active Observer.

They also know that they are so afraid that they will rub their nose into the thing… narrow cone of vision, losing perspective, losing the context, accidents, tragedies, losses result.

But, for crying out loud, it is so easy to keep a distance! It is so easy to not get involved. It is so easy to stay aware, or at least put into your scheduler every 4-5 hours: “check where we are going! Make course corrections if necessary.”

Between those that jump and quit, those that jump and go to hell, or those that never start… there are a few people, less than one percent, that actually enjoy “sailing”, enjoy the zig-zag, enjoy the way life works, instead of hoping it will work differently.

Get to know yourself, both who you are that works, and what you do that doesn’t.

But for that, ugh, you’ll have to keep your eyes open, and keep yourself at a slight distance, so you can see.

PS: You can be overconfident in yourself, in another, in what you read, in the Bible, in a method, in what somebody said… even in me. Don’t do it. It makes you stupid…

My method of getting to the truth is called the Bumbling Idiot’s method… you keep on bumbling, with your eyes open, aware, paying attention to all the feedback, and you get to where you wanted to get. It’s not elegant, but it is very effective. You won’t impress… but your results will.

And, of course, the now customary video, that only loosely relates:

Read the original article: Overconfidence… do you screw up because of it? Or the opposite? lol