Here’s a riddle for you.
What do the following have in common:
1. Copernicus’s
1543 proposal that the Earth revolves around the Sun
2. A Hungarian physician’s 1847 discovery that infant mortality rates dropped 10x when doctors washed their hands before seeing each patient
3. Darwin’s 1859 Theory of Evolution, which proposed that organisms develop through natural
selection
4. Einstein’s 1916 General Theory of Relativity, which put forward the notion that gravity is not a force but the curvature of space-time
5. Satoshi Nakamoto “launching” Bitcoin in 2008 – and Bitcoin's subsequent adoption
Have you got it?
All these breakthroughs were ignored, mocked and ridiculed when they were put forward.
They were only accepted and adopted as truths years later.
Why?
Because each breakthrough upset the apple cart and flew in the face of what was accepted or practised at the time.
This is a known phenomenon. It’s named after the Hungarian physician who made that discovery about mortality rates.
His name was Ignaz Semmelweis.
The Semmelweis Effect states that humans have a tendency to reject new ideas which contradict current beliefs or practises.
Ideas like these only become adopted when Old Father Time has plodded on a few more years.
Number 5 is the exception. I don’t think Old Father Time has
had his say here just yet.
But I think he will.
See, Number 5 is my prediction.
Bitcoin – ye shall not pass! Too new, too wacky, too different. But new, wacky and different don’t necessarily make something wrong. As the other examples show.
So being a Bitcoin supporter today requires a leap of faith. It requires trusting where others don’t.
And taking a leap of faith and trusting gets to the heart of the matter.
You see, if we always wait for others to come with us on our journey, we could be waiting forever.
And if we wait forever, we may miss opportunities to try something new or different. Or miss opportunities to follow what
our heart is telling us to be true.
Of course, it’s not easy swimming against the tide like this.
In fact it’s
downright difficult.
It means taking an opposing stance to people who don’t understand or don’t believe.
Take Galileo Galilei.
A man with a name so stereotypically Italian he might as well’ve been called Giuseppe Spaghetti.
Well, Galileo was sentenced to life imprisonment for supporting Copernicus’s proposal. But he did it anyway. He stood up for what he believed to
be true.
So with Semmelweis in mind, it could be worth asking:
What are you choosing not to believe just because it
challenges the status quo?
And what do you know deep down in your heart to be true, but you ignore?
If you’d like a hand figuring these out, I can help.
The link is below.
That’s all
for today.
Catch you tomorrow.
- Tom
p.s. Whenever you're ready, here are the ways you can connect with me