When a baseball player makes an error, it goes into the record and is published. How many of us could not stand this sort of daily scrutiny? Or are willing to admit an error before we are called on it?
Most of us are protective and defensive, from the chiefs of staff down to the janitor's assistant. Our aim is not to do right so much as not to be perceived as doing wrong.
Yet all the decisive people in the world have made waves, and sometimes they have been swamped by them. But no waves, no progress; and the only way to avoid mistakes is to be totally passive, which is to say, dead. You won't get any blame that way - nor will you get anything else.
Most of us are protective and defensive, from the chiefs of staff down to the janitor's assistant. Our aim is not to do right so much as not to be perceived as doing wrong.
Yet all the decisive people in the world have made waves, and sometimes they have been swamped by them. But no waves, no progress; and the only way to avoid mistakes is to be totally passive, which is to say, dead. You won't get any blame that way - nor will you get anything else.
Sydney J. Harris
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