Dear LPG, 

I recently found myself doing a bit of internet surfing and stumbled upon something that had never really occurred to me before.  It is interesting how many things, ideas or circumstances we accidentally discover. 

We oldies tend to think that any exciting thing that might happen to us has already occurred, but what I learned from Google that day left me thinking.  We should never assume that our big moment has passed us by; it might yet be to come.  Once we get to older age, others have a habit of seeing most of us as we are and after a while, what we used to do, our interests and the things that fired our imaginations and kept our focus get lost unless we become part of a conversation where the subject comes up. 

We also spend a lot of time letting all the latest gadgets pass us by but allow me to return to what I discovered during that internet surfing session.  

I did not realise that so many inventions we take for granted today were discovered by accident.  Most of us might be able to name a few of their now famous inventors, but I think the ways their inventions came about are sometimes even more interesting, and I have found the links to a few of their stories; I thought it worth passing them on. 

Few of us have found ourselves anywhere near the world of ground-breaking discovery, and we probably have yet to make a plan to start trying to see something new and innovative to show the world at our time of life. Still, we need to make sure that we always take advantage of every opportunity to share the details of anything we discover by accident, no matter how big or small and whether it stems from a scientific, practical, academic, social or any other aspect of life.   We could be destined to be the subject of a future list of accidental innovators. 

There might be an accidental inventor hidden inside a few of us; all we have to do is recognise the invention rather than dismiss it if, or when it happens.  

IG, Bellingham.

IG shares what he learned.

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