The Man of Experience – Sunday, February 27, 1983
Take a man or a woman, take any individual, and measure his progress. Use whatever yardstick as a measure: skill, aptitude, ability to produce, sensitivity, business prowess, or even genius. Then look for causes; search for the reasons behind individual potential; determine why one individual succeeds where another fails, why one man can finish the job while another is still seeking for methods; analyze why the same task is surmountable by one and impossible for another—and when you do, you’ll discover this fact: that experience is one of the most valuable factors in any human success formula.
It’s true, experience is a valuable human asset. If necessity is the mother of invention, then experience is the father of application. For without it, knowledge cannot be applied. Without experience the artist’s knowledge of paints, harmony, and textures remains forever detached from the canvas. Without experience the theories of science are nothing more than untried laboratory postulates, useless in their application to heal the infirmities of mankind. And more importantly, without experience our personal opinions and conclusions are weak and naive, or more likely, never born at all.
We all need experience; our children need it. To use affluence or technology to deprive ourselves or our offspring of a character-building experience is to trade that which is priceless for that which is worthless. As sunlight provides the necessary ingredient for plant growth, experience is necessary for the development of human personality. The two are inseparable and synonymous: experience and development.
“Give me the man or woman of experience,” wrote one businessman. “Give me the man who’s been there, who’s been in the ring, taken some blows, and lost a few rounds.
Give me the man [or woman] who’s had enough sense to have failed at something, who has risked his fortune and pride on himself and walked away a loser, but the wiser for it…give me the person of experience who can figure things out…who isn’t afraid to make decisions [or mistakes] because he’s already made a bundle of them in the past…[Give me] the [person] of experience.”1
Experience is the key which opens the door to success in any worthwhile endeavor.
1 Robinson, M.L., “The Man of Experience” from Diary of a Bureaucrat, 1982, unpublished.
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February 27, 1983
Broadcast Number 2,793