On Errors
Or, how to make sense of when you don’t make sense
Recently, I had the opportunity to visit one of the oddest attractions in the state of Texas.
North Texas, of course, has no shortage of peculiar landmarks—from the buried Cadillacs outside Amarillo to the world’s largest Bowie knife in (you guessed it) Bowie, Texas.
Nestled just outside the city of Cisco, on a road so small it’s easy to miss, lies an abandoned zoo.
The zoo, a product of Cisco’s oil-boom era, once stood alongside ambitious projects like the first Hilton Hotel and the great Cisco Dam.
It boasted a menagerie of animals—including bears—and benefited from its proximity to what was then the world’s largest concrete swimming pool, complete with a nearly thirty-foot diving tower.
But the crash of 1929 ended any hope of sustainability.
Over the course of the Great Depression, the city struggled to stay afloat, and the zoo fell into disrepair.
By the mid-1930s, it was closed.
Some say the animals were killed.
Others say a bear escaped—or fell ill.
Whatever the truth, the dream ended.
The city erred.
The zoo was abandoned.
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When Things Fall Apart
The visit, while undeniably interesting, prompted a deeper question:
How do we avoid errors in life?
The simple answer, of course, is that we can’t.
But the fuller truth is more complicated.
In times of abundance, we stretch ourselves thin—financially, emotionally, relationally.
We convince ourselves we can sustain the pace, that the margins will hold.
Until they don’t.
So how do we avoid crashing out?
How do we prevent our own abandoned zoos, built during seasons of plenty?
I believe it begins with understanding the difference between forced and unforced errors.
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Forced vs. Unforced
In sports—particularly tennis—a forced error occurs when an opponent’s skill or strategy causes a mistake.
An unforced error, by contrast, is self-inflicted.
A misjudgment.
A lapse in restraint.
A blunder unrelated to external pressure.
It’s the own goal in soccer.
The premature celebration in football—spiking the ball on the one-yard line, only to have it recovered by the opposing team for a touchdown.
Our choices become points for the other side, making it harder not just to win—but to remain competitive at all.
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Learning to Play Better
Here’s the harder truth: we must get better at avoiding unforced errors.
We can’t control every outcome in life, but we can influence the velocity of those outcomes—especially when our decisions are guided by clarity rather than impulse.
I make mistakes daily.
So do you.
So do we all.
Growth doesn’t come from perfection; it comes from refusing to make the same mistake twice. From regularly assessing what’s working—and what isn’t.
In relationships, this may require a sober look in the mirror after several failed ones, asking what patterns of our own behavior contributed to the ending.
At work, it might mean asking uncomfortable questions: Is this really for me? Can I sustain this for the long haul?
With children—especially amid repeated conflict—it may require admitting we’re out of our depth and seeking guidance, perspective, or help.
Whatever the context, wisdom asks us to move forward steadily rather than reactively.
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Erring Less, Living Better
There’s a poem I return to whenever I’m tempted to be too hard on myself.
It’s by the Danish scientist and poet Piet Hein, aptly titled “The Road to Wisdom.”
The road to wisdom? — Well, it’s plain
and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.
The poem isn’t an excuse—it’s a standard.
Not for faultlessness, but for learning.
Not for avoidance, but for discernment.
And that distinction matters.
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Life does not require perfection from us—only attention.
When we slow down enough to notice where we overreached, where we ignored warning signs, where we acted out of fear or excess, we reclaim something essential: choice.
The Stoics taught that improvement begins not with blame, but with clear seeing.
And with each unforced error avoided, we recover a little more balance, a little more freedom, and a little more peace.