nothing new under the sun

dont-make-my-mistake.com! this is my idea of the week. i try to come up with a new revenue generating idea a week. hopefully i'll strike gold with one of the silly / witty / slick ideas i come up with.

so how often do we make the same mistakes? the same crap over and over again. i always get caught speeding...always... ever notice someone pulled over by the side of the road by a police officer while there is a traffic jam? yeah i am that guy. granted, i am usually guilty...

so i had to go to court today - june 1st - and i paid a $187 fine and got 5 stinking points added on my license and i already had 6 stinking points. now i have to go take the driver's license written test over again to get some stinking points deducted (for my international readers; points are very bad).

as i sat and waited for the judge, i thought to myself, when i have children, i wonder if they will drive fast in their floating cars of the future (whatever they drive then) wouldn't it be cool to have a way to chronicle all the mistakes i've made, am making, and will make? so at least they know and can try to avoid them. how about sharing this information with the world? and that is how the concept of "dont-make-my-mistake.com" came about. people can go on the website and tell about mistakes that they've made, and others can read about it. you can even have a mistake of the day emailed to you, we can make T-shirts, and hats and mugs... hehe

do you know why "dont-make-my-mistake.com" never will work or be successful? solomon (the wisest guy ever) put it like this

...What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun....

we think we are smarter than our forefathers / predecessors. we don't realize that prevention is better than cure, better not spill the milk than clean up the mess really well. in order to prevent making a mistake again, i have to first realize that there is a very good chance that i will make that mistake again. but my pride prevents me from realizing that... and before you know it... ooops i did it again.

so making mistakes is a given. repeating mistakes is also expected. the tragedy is that although we are all afflicted by this character flaw, some people are prone to making and repeating mistakes of a far greater degree and consequence. the magnitude of their (repetitive) screw-ups is legendary. which is worse, repeating small, tiny, mistakes over and over or big life changing ones? (we shouldn't judge) but who is dummer? me leaving the toilet seat up repeatedly or the person that cheats - and gets caught - repeatedly?

i know people who date the same type of (wrong) person over and over again. or fathers that neglect their families, or staying up late when you know you should go to bed, or gambling away your paycheck.

i've spent plenty (too much) of my hard earned dollars on speeding tickets... you know how i am going to break the cycle? you are probably saying "slow down" or something like that, well i am saying that i am going to get a radar detector to warm me when there is a cop around... yes thats what i'll do. hey that'll be a great birthday gift... june 8th cannot come soon enough...

prevention is better than cure! there is nothing new under the sun! we all have available to us amazing resources. in africa they say (and i paraphrase) "when an old man dies, it's like burning one hundred libraries full of single copy books."

I wish my father lives here in the U.S. of A so i can pick his brain and hear stories about his mistakes, and see the expressions on his eyebrows as he tells the stories, and hear the disappointment in his voice, and see the victories in his smile when he tells of times when he was able to prevent rather than cure... it is hard to experience this over the phone or read it on "dont-make-my-mistake.com"

please post your thoughts and comments...