I'm reminded of Honest Abe's words as I persevere: 'Try, try, and again try'

Most of us remember those times in our lives when we encountered a genuinely profound idea…some call this experience an ‘epiphany’ moment, where we have a sudden intuitive realization about the meaning of something really big – like the “purpose of our existence.”

During my time on this earth, two ideas have helped guide me: one I learned during my academic career and the other was told to me by a professor when I was an undergraduate.

“Kaizen” is the Japanese notion of continuous improvement. It means that you are unlikely to get something right the first time you try it, but with subsequent attempts, you will improve and make that something better and better. Sitzfleisch literally means, “buttocks” in Yiddish, but is figuratively translated as someone demonstrating the qualities of patience or perseverance.

I candidly admit that I have seldom done anything right on my first try. But rather than quitting, I learned what I did wrong and then…fixed it…and continued fixing it.

Sometimes this took a long time, but eventually, I was able to do that something, reasonably well. Writing a research paper takes a long (really, long) time. In one instance, it took me 15 years to have an essay published, and that was after more than 100 revisions.

This is kaizen in the extreme!

There is an old admonition among academics that exhorts them to publish or perish. For university faculty, publication is the route to career advancement. My undergraduate professor, on learning that I wanted to follow in his footsteps and teach in a university, cautioned that if I chose this career path I would need to have plenty of “sitzfleisch” – or, extra padding on my backside – because I would be waiting a long time to see my writing in print.

But both of these seminal ideas have something in common – they emphasize that because most of us are ‘normal’ (which means that we gravitate toward the average or norm) – we can’t expect to get things right after only one go at it.

If at first you don’t succeed, you’re probably normal – but … try, try again.

Patience truly becomes a virtue as we strive to continuously improve our skills at writing, sports, art or whatever we do. So, the idea about the kaizen of sitzfleisch covers a lot of ground, in our quest to becoming better, more productive and fulfilled human beings. Or, as Abraham Lincoln is claimed to have said: “Good things come to those who wait.” So, keep improving on what you do, remain (comfortably) seated on your sitzfleisch, and then wait for success to find you.

Ron Messer holds six university degrees and teaches at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, located in Vancouver, British Columbia. He does not think of himself as a writer, but rather as an interpreter of ‘big ideas’ and how they apply to our personal lives. He can be reached at ron.messer@kpu.ca.