There is a philosophical notion that there is not a new idea anywhere in the world. Whatever idea pops into your head, someone had it before you did.
With technology evolving at breakneck speeds these days, I’m not sure this principle is true. There seems to always be something new on the horizon, but perhaps Edison dreamed up an MP3 player in his day but never acted on it.
Simple failure to act upon an idea seems to be the key. Ideas pop into our heads and we reason our way out of making them a reality.
Take, for example, an idea I had for a fold-down stepstool. As a mom, I had my share of trauma in the act of washing my daughter’s hands in a restroom that did not provide a stepstool. I tried holding her on my hip, and propping her on my raised knee, all the while trying to avoid a hernia. I even witnessed another mom holding her son under her arm like a football while he washed his hands. I envisioned a stool a mom with her hands perpetually full could kick down from the wall, and it would fold itself back up again after use.
I started looking around to develop it, and found an invention company all too willing to relieve me of $10K in order to research and produce it. The idea drifted to the ever-present back burner in my mind.
Walking into the restrooms at the Denver Zoo recently, I stopped dead in my tracks. There it was, “my” folding step stool idea. And with a niftier design than my original. So someone else had the same idea and went ahead with it. She must have seen the woman with Football-boy, too.
When an idea comes into your mind, you are meant to act on it. Too many of us don’t do this, and that idea floats across the universe to a more open and ready mind.
This is not to say all ideas are good. Just ask a middle-schooler.
My husband and I once thought of putting a drive-through coffee place in an area where there were plenty of commuters to frequent it. We didn’t act, and along came the Jolly Green Coffee Giant and plunked a store down on the very spot we envisioned.
As a left-handed person, I derived a device I could slip onto my left pinky finger to stop smears of ink and graphite all along the side of my hand. It was awkward and so dorky-looking that no self-respecting lefty would wear it. Perhaps someone has improved on that idea, but I have yet to see it.
Ideas out there may not be new, but people’s take on them may be. Have you seen some of the things Japanese inventors create? (Suddenly my “Leftie-Guard” doesn’t look so lame.) I am actually sort of relieved the idea for a toilet that puts a seat cover on itself didn’t come into my mind at all.
I heard that the limit for hearing “No” is about seven times before we give up on our ideas. The eighth time could be a “yes”, but we roll over and give up because it’s the easiest thing to do.
Maybe humans are too fearful of what will happen if we fail. There really would be nothing new under the sun if once and a while one of us didn’t break from the herd and act on an idea, no matter how unoriginal.
The primitive man who decided to act on designing the wheel may have left his peers commiserating about heavy loads. Perhaps one of them came up with the idea, but determined he would get around to it, or he would be ridiculed. Either way, as a former traveling teacher I have unprecedented appreciation for the wheel.
Now if only someone would act on the idea for an industrial strength hook that wouldn’t snap off the bathroom stall door the minute a nomadic mom tries to hang a diaper bag on it. My purse and I are waiting.
Anthonette Klinkerman lives in Castle Pines North. EDITOR’S NOTE: This online-only guest commentary has not been edited. Guest commentary submissions of up to 650 words may be sent to openforum@denverpost.com.
