Original Sin: What Elution Means….
Failure- even the word feels like broken glass in your mouth. In our attempts for greatness, we will undoubtedly have to deal with some failure. For some people, it will be a total failure of a project that yields no results after gallons of blood, sweat, and tears. For most people, it will be failure to be careful. This was the case for me.
I will now outline the conversation between Robert (my postdoc mentor) and myself leading to my realization of folly:
Prometheus: “OK, I finished eluting the proteins.”
Robert: “Great. (hands vial)… Where is the rest of it?”
Prometheus: “What rest of it?”
Apparently while I was filtering the proteins, I dumped the part I was supposed to keep. Bad call of judgment. Alas, back to the drawing board. I at least still have some protein sample I can work with. Mistakes are a natural part of the life. We learn from them, and ultimately become better people because of them. In the words of Mark Twain:
“Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.”
