Einthoven
IF you have ever looked for a job, you will
discover that all the positions you ever wanted
required previous experience. But experience is
acquired through making bad decisions.
Experience is a tough teacher, it gives you the
test first and the lesson later. God looks for
experienced help. That is to say God helps
experienced people desiring divine visitation.
When you are working for Jehovah, He uses
everything you have been through, seeing it as
learned obedience, making you perfectly
equipped to serve Him.
However, perspective changes every thing,
especially when you learn to see your life
through fresh eyes. Experience isn’t what
happens to you, as much as what you do with
what happens to you.
Which is why your pain and other people’s
pain become someone else’s gain. Experience
of others are kept in books, biographies and
memoirs. Immediately you read them, they
become part of your experience.
The saying: ‘‘Experience is the best teacher”
isn’t correct. The correct statement is that
evaluated experience, is the best teacher. It is
what you do with your experience that
matters.
Everyday you have the opportunity to record
new experiences. With each page you gain
more understanding. As you grow your
notebook of experiences you fill it with
observations.
The issue is that few of us make the best use
of our notebooks. Some of us leave our
notebooks closed, rarely going through them
again. We rarely reflect on them and gain
greater wisdom.
Reflection turns into insight, so that we not
only live the experience, but learn from it.
There are people with lots of knowledge but
little understanding. They have the means but
they do not understand what to do with their
knowledge.
When 25 years go by, they don’t gain 25 years
experience, they gain only one year of
experience 25 times.
To win in life, you must turn your experience
into wisdom. So slow down, wisdom is
gleaned over time, not overnight. We all
experience more than we understand. And
experience enables you to recognize the
mistake when you make it again.
Sadly, too much happens to us in life for us to
be able to understand it all. No matter how
smart you are, your understanding will never
catch up with your experience. Which is why
you must make the most of what you can
understand.
Your attitude towards unplanned and
unpleasant experiences determines your
growth and the fulfillment of your life
ambition. Life is full of unforeseen detours.
Learn to turn such detours into delights.
Treat detours as special excursions and
learning tours. Do not fight them or you will
never learn their purpose. Later you will get
back on track, becoming wiser and stronger.
Lack of experience is costly, but our greatest
ignorance isn’t of what we have yet to learn,
but of how little we really know. The arrogance
of the young is the direct result of his
ignorance of consequences. You cannot avoid
making mistakes but you can avoid them,
grow through them b y not making the same
errors. The cost of experience is enormous.
You cannot gain experience without paying a
price. You can only hope that the price isn’t
greater than the value of the experience
gained. Besides, you cannot determine the
price until you have gained the experience.
However, it is tragic to pay the price for
experience and not learn the lesson.
Remember, evaluated experience lifts you
above the crowd. Winners make it a practice
to reflect on their experiences and learn from
them.
A particular quality you need to overcome
opposition is zeal. It is another word for
passion. Zeal keeps you going when others are
quitting. It pushes you through the toughest
times and gives you energy you don’t know
you possessed.
Opportunity cannot take the place of zeal.
Opportunity can open the door, without zeal,
you can’t make the most of your
opportunities.
Knowledge cannot replace zeal. Some of the
world’s worst leaders are the smartest, but
some of the greatest, such as Abraham
Lincoln, had very little formal education.
A resume may get you past the door but
won’t secure you outstanding performance.
Even talent won’t replace zeal. Many people
with great talent who never achieve
professional success.
Talent is like money, it only grown when you
put it to work. You will never be successful
without the help of others. But being
surrounded by rich people doesn’t guarantee
you success. Thus, zeal is the game-changer,
it attracts the grace of God.
Our champion this week is Williem Einthoven,
the Dutch physiologist who was awarded the
1924 Nobel prize for medicine for his
discovery of the electrical properties of heart
through the electrocardiograph, which he
developed as a practical clinical instrument
and an important tool in the diagnosis of
heart disease.
Born in May 1860 in Java, Dutch East Indies,
Einthoven graduated in medicine from the
University of Utrecht and served as professor
of physiology at the University of Leiden from
1886 until his death in 1927.
In 1903 he devised the first string
galvanometer. With that he was able to
measure changes by contractions of the heart
and record them graphically.
He coined the term electrocardiogram for this
process. From 1908 to 1913, he studied
patterns of records of normal heart activity in
order to gain precision in recognizing and
interpreting deviations.
Einthoven continued to develop electrode
arrangements and the present-day standard
limb leads were originally described and used
by him. He died on his work-bench in his
office in 1927.