Perhaps, There's A Message In Your Mess

Wisdom Nugget:"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

                                                                                                                                - Albert Einstein.

                                                                                                                         

Joseph Addison had this to say, that “our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments (problems); but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures”

Someone said, "Chance favours the prepared mind." That's the genius behind all great inventions. The following “accidental” inventions by some scientists weren’t prepared for. These scientists did their science on the brink and were able to see the magic in a mistake, set-back, or coincidence.

Alexander Fleming, the accidental inventor of Penicillin - which today is one of the most famous and fortunate accidents of the 20th century arrived at this invention albeit mistakenly. Here’s how it happened, he went on vacation one day in 1928, but didn't clean up his workstation before he did. When he returned, Fleming noticed a strange fungus on some of his cultures; even stranger was that bacteria didn't seem to thrive near those cultures - he’d created “Penicillin”

Penicillin became the first, and still is one of the most widely used antibiotics today.

William Perkin wanted to cure malaria; but instead his scientific endeavors changed the face of fashion forever and, helped fight cancer. Here's how, in 1856 Perkin was trying to come up with artificial quinine. Instead of a malaria treatment, his experiments produced a thick murky mess. But the more he looked at it, the more Perkin saw a beautiful color in his mess. He unwittingly made the first-ever synthetic dye. Which was far better than any dye that came from nature; the color was brighter, more vibrant, and didn't fade or wash out. His discovery also turned chemistry into a money-generating science - making it attractive for a whole generation of curious-minded people. One of the people inspired by Perkin's work was German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich, who used Perkin's dyes to pioneer immunology and chemotherapy.

Here’s one more message in a mess discovery. In 1907 shellac was used as insulation in electronics. It was costing the industry a pretty penny to import shellac, which was made from Southeast Asian beetles, and at home chemist Leo Hendrik Baekeland thought he might turn a profit if he could produce a shellac alternative. Instead his experiments yielded a mouldable material that could take high temperatures without distorting. Baekeland thought his "Bakelite" might be used for phonograph records, but it was soon clear that the product had thousands of uses. Today plastic, which was derived from Bakelite, is used for everything from telephones to iconic movie punch lines.

Problems are often minefields for greatness, if we are patient enough to pause for a second and wade through the thick, murky, annoying and unpalatable situations called problems life throws at us – it turns out that most disappointments are blessings in disguise after all.