better with failure and mistakes

a friend was working on a project on making mistakes, and during a conversation, it dawned upon us that a mistake is termed mis-take because that's exactly what it is - a miss-take. the word "take" has such a variety of meaning and connotation, so it is really open for interpretation. my favourite one would have to be a "miss(ed)-attempt" - like how actors have "takes" on set, every "take" is an attempt. and they have many "takes" and attempts until they get a good one. and that is the one that finally makes the cut. yes, it's a pity we missed it on our first try, but we can always go for a second, third, fourth...as many takes as we'd like.

having gone through four years of design education and working for over a year, mistakes have really grown on me, especially with projects that deal with material exploration. with every mistake, we break it down, analyse it, and try again in an attempt to avoid repeating the same mistake. it builds our familiarity and intuition in working with the material/medium. or sometimes, it's about pivoting to see the good in mistakes - after all, post-its were byproducts of a mistake!

more importantly, beyond the project, it grooms our resilience, courage and ability to look at things from a different perspective. of course it is still frustrating to make mistakes. but when stuck in a maze, knowing where dead ends are is always better than being paralysed by fear. it's scary, but also an adventure.

more importantly, appreciation of mistakes helps to cope/overcome fear. "what if i am not good enough", "what would the others think of me if i did ______" many times, we are reluctant to try something because we struggle with the consequence of failure. and of course i still am afraid of such. but failures are mis-takes too. meaning we can analyse what went bad, learn, and try again.

this site is dedicated to the spirit of embracing mistakes - feel free to browse through some of snippets/moments of my design journey with the more process-driven works i've done, and learn from my mistakes. this monologue series also came about because i wanted to work on my communication, to not be afraid of saying the wrong things or having my own opinions. even as i am writing now, i feel like i am making a mistake...but sticking to my guns in honour of the topic!