Some
wiseguy once said: '
A good idea
is the one you wish you'd thought up
yourself'. You could be wishing this for a
few different reasons.
- The recognition you would have gotten
Well it's too late for you to think
of it now, so get over it.
- Was it a money making idea?
Because then I
have no way to deal with it. I would be banging my head
against the wall.
- It's wistful thinking that you had the
same mental capacity as the
person who worked it out.
How can I fix this one? I have the brains that
I have because I have them. how profound.
Oh, I can say 'It's not brains really, but a style
of thought, different patterns and all that.'
- You've been upstaged by someone else.
THIS HURTS. You had already
thought of it, but dismissed it as too hard, impractical
or just impossible. My thinking over here is somewhere
along the lines of: If you dismissed it, you had reasons: You didn't have the finances, the social capacity,
or the organization skills that this guy has brought
to the concept. Whatever it was. But then someone
reminds you that If there's a will, there's a way.
And you start kicking yourself all over again. WHY DID
I NOT THINK OF IT FIRST?
- The simplicity of the solution.
NOTHING to do with jealousy or recognition.
Just a transparent and lucid thought. And you
go 'Why didn't I think of it first?', meaning, 'How could
I have not seen that this is the way to do it?'. And it
becomes a celebration between the thinkers, that someone
found the answer, after it's been staring you in the
face for ages.
Just admire the idea for what it is, its
implementation, its wholeness, its
existence. Because it's already been thought
of, and you're two minutes late.