QUESTIONING THE DEFINITION OF MADNESS

Why is it that someone said that doing the same thing over and over again and each time expecting different results is madness? Really? Is it madness? Take a look around you. Take a look at some of the repetitive things that you do on a daily basis. 

Would you be doing them over and over expecting the same results? Well obviously, there is a big lesson in that statement. However I have to contend that at times, I must do the same thing repeatedly each time expecting a different result.

The secret here is that at each attempt, there is normally subtle progress in two ways: One, either I change internally by strengthening my resolve or I get to learn one thing or two, like tenacity. I could also find that my tenacity is increasing. I have personally learnt that the more I am in action over something, the more I learn the best way to accomplish it. In fact that way, I become an authority over that subject. 

So as you can see, doing the same thing over and over again at some length is thoroughly beneficial, and I will recommend it today…as long as you know exactly what you are aiming at, and that the thing you are doing right now is the only action available to you to reach your end. SELAH.

Another subtle way that you make progress is on the end of the problem. You have no idea what shifts are happening in your target output. If water trickles on a rock today, there is nothing to write home about it. Nothing to take note of. However, give that water-rock relationship some time, you have no clue how critical each drop is to breaking that rock over time.

So as you can see, doing the same thing over and over again and each time expecting a different result might not be madness in this case here.

The main point of this post however is this. There normally is a threshold that we are supposed to breakthrough. When they launch a rocket into space, there is serious opposition until it breaks through to space where it coasts with absolutely no opposition.

The other decade, we broke the sound barrier. David Rudisha, a Kenyan athlete broke a record in 800 Meters track event at the recent London Olympics. This simply means that the floodgates have been opened to equal it and break it in the days to come.

As we continue doing the same thing over and over again, we need to be tenacious enough to break through the barrier that hinders us. Some of us have given up at the point of breakthrough….like the guy who sold a mine after digging in for precious metals for years without success, only for the new owner to drill six inches and hit a jackpot!

Like I said, you have absolutely no idea what impact your seemingly subtle effort of the day has to do with your vision today.

For us to break through the barrier, sometimes we gotta do what we have never done before. That is when Albert Einstein’s theory of madness comes into operation. It has to do with barriers. It has to do with defeating strong holds. It has to do with dealing with those things that we are afraid of. 

It could be for a Christian, taking a 40-day fast. It could be for a visionary taking the courage to knock on people’s doors until you receive funding. It could be increasing time for education over entertainment. It all is going all out and doing something outside of the norm…something that is going to cost you something…something that puts your reputation on the line.

Breaking the barrier is the only sure way of making the madness of doing something over and over again irrelevant…yet the madness is indispensable! SELAH