Lessons for a father - The Best Idea Of All

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What do the now famous "Obamacare" and the iPhone have in common? What sort of commonality, do you think, exists between free speech and level of water fluoridization? What about gender and race equality, day care for children, computers, music, television and a whole host of other things? They were all an idea once. Just an idea.

All of us have been given this great gift of thought. We can all think. It does not matter where we come from and what the nature of our adversity is. We may be incapable of solving a particular problem but that is not the point. We can think and that is all an idea needs - thought.

We get so wrapped around the issue of coming up with the best solution that is unbreakable under duress that we forget that an idea - any idea - is perfect. 

So how is it that ideas do not work? Because of us.

The implementation of an idea, which till then had been perfect, throws curve balls in the form of human, system or resource limitations. An idea might not work because the world, we, are not ready for it or, there is a better idea to replace it or, worse, because we do not want it to work.

Till that time, however, it is as good an idea as any other. For us to implement, consume and judge the fruits of our mental and physical labor, we all need and must have an idea.

So what if we realized that there is an idea which is the best of all? What if it is an idea that is unimpeachable and has the capacity to fulfill every criterion that we set for it to be a success? What if it is so powerful that is needs to be implemented at work and in families right away? And what if we all already know about it but shy away from it all the time?

The best idea of all, I think, is to have an idea. The idea might prove to be unimaginably hard to implement. May be it will be impossible given the framework of time, budget and human and technical resources at our disposal. But, it might also be the best idea that anyone ever came up with. The only way of really finding out if you just came up with the idea of the next century is to have it and share it. 


I do hope that our son grows up to be full of great ideas. If not great, however, I do hope that he is full of many ideas.

Rome was not built in a day, neither was the American dream won nor was Everest conquered and not Camelot created. But it all started in someone's head one glorious morning. 

It all started with an absurd idea to change the world as we know it. 

Have you had an idea lately? What did you do next?