okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering
Monday, July 26, 2010
"A mistake is a mistake even if you get away with it"
"A mistake is a mistake even if you get away with it."
That's why I've been trying to come up with a good way of counting "near misses" - mistakes that don't cost any time. So far all I've come up with is sitting down with the map and going over my route trying to remember any near misses. Maybe there's a better approach, but I haven't figured it out yet.
The quote is from Ed Viesturs, a mountain climber. Here's the full quote from an interview with Viesturs about making mistakes:
...a mistake is a mistake even if you get away with it. Even though we succeeded, I don't ever want to do that again. I felt on the way down that the conditions were pretty desperate. We could've gone down in an avalanche at any minute. We just got really, really lucky. There were moments I was convinced we weren't going to make it down, when I said [to myself], "Ed, you've made the last and most stupid mistake of your life."
I think a lot of people, when they survive a situation like that, they're willing to do it again. They're like, "Well, you know I got away with it one time, I can probably get away with it again." You do that too many times and sooner or later, it's not going to work out.
