A famous scientist told us why he was able to be more creative than the ordinary person.
He said that it came from an experience with his mother that happened when he was about two years old. He was trying to move a bottle of milk from the refrigerator when he lost the bottle and it fell on the floor and broken. When his mother came into the kitchen, instead of shouting at him, she said, "Robert, what a great mess you have made! I have seldom seen so much milk on the floor. Well, the accident has already been done. Would you like to play in the milk for a few minutes before we clean it up?"
He did. After a few minutes, his mother said, "You know, Robert, whenever you make a mess like this, you have to clean it up and manage everything to its proper order at last. So, how would you like to do that?" He cleaned up the milk with his mother.
His mother then said, "You know, what we have here is a failed experiment in how to successfully carry a big milk bottle with two small hands. Let's go out in the back yard and fill the bottle with water and see if you can discover a way to carry it without dropping it." The little boy learned that if he caught the bottle at the top near the lip with both hands, he could carry it without dropping it. What a wonderful lesson! This famous scientist then said that it was at that moment that he knew he didn't need to be afraid to make mistakes. Instead, he learned that mistakes were just chances for learning something new, which is, after all, what scientific experiments are all about.
