On Multiplying Mistakes

Perhaps we have all had the experience of trying to find a place we haven’t been before, and of turning off the right road⎯and then somehow sensing that we had turned off the right road. But despite the warning sense within us, we may doggedly have pursued the wrong road until we arrived at a dead end, or until we had gone so far that we had lost much time and had much distance to retrace.

There are many ways in which men find themselves on wrong roads, and seemingly there are many reasons why they don’t sooner turn back to the right one: sometimes because of stubbornness, of pride or perverseness; sometimes because of the fallacy of supposing that if a person has taken one wrong step he had just as well take two; that if he has slipped somewhat he had just as well slip farther; that if he has made one mistake, it doesn’t matter too much if he makes more. These are all flagrant fallacies that cause carelessness to lead to more carelessness, misconduct to more misconduct, to the ultimate hardening of habits, and to heartbreak and unhappiness.

It was said of the prodigal son that he “came to himself.” But it was only after he had gone a long way in the wrong direction and after he had lost his inheritance and his self-respect.