You keep a picture of WHAT above your desk?

I keep a large, framed photograph of the RMS Titanic above my desk.

There are a lot of reasons for that. I’ve always been interested in the Titanic story. It’s a great people story. There are lessons to be learned from the history. There was really no reason for the accident to happen, so there is the angst about what could have been.

The biggest reason for keeping the photo where I can see it is that the story is proof of the fact that none of us is too big, too smart or too rich to fail. And that includes me.

Every once in a while I announce to the family that I have just hatched my latest brilliant plan. I never add the bit about it being a plan which cannot fail. I know better. In fact, since very few of my brilliant plans ever work, my wife and kids have learned to seek cover anytime I announce my latest red hot idea.

The Titanic started out as someone’s latest brilliant design. It was a heckuva ship, well equipped. But it was operated by over-confident humans who turned someone’s brilliant idea into a really big anchor. The ship’s captain, James Smith, was quoted as saying that modern shipbuilding had advanced beyond the point where ships sank. I’m sure he believed what he said.

History tells us that Smith was wrong and that’s my point here: There is no such thing as a plan which cannot fail. Ask the talent-laden Miami Heat or Philadelphia Eagles about fail-proof ideas. Ask the unbeatable Baltimore Colts about their game plan against the New York Jets before the third Super Bowl. Ask Hall of Fame relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley about over confidence against gimpy-legged home run hitters.

Ask real estate speculators about all the land they bought eight years ago. Ouch.

The human ego frequently leads us to ignore human history. Eventually, it leads us to supremely human failures. If you glance at history, you’ll find we really don’t stop making the same mistakes. The biggest mistake we keep making is the one Captain Smith made all those years ago and that is believing that we have advanced too far as humans to fail on a large scale.

We can fail. We do fail. And we will fail. But, if we study history with an eye toward learning from it, we can learn to contain the scope of our failures.

So I keep looking at my photograph of the Titanic and, sooner or later, I hope to learn something from it.

Thanks for reading.