I’ve been hearing this word a lot.
There’s nothing inherently bad in being unprecedented. You can have unprecedented success. But it seems like it’s mostly used to describe something negative. Especially in the case of the president where tradition and precedent are supposed to be important.
I think if you want to create real change, though, you have to be unprecedented. Or maybe I should say, if you’re creating real change, you’re going to create situations in the world that are unprecedented.
In law, a precedent is an interpretation of the law that can be applied to similar circumstances. If a case or aspect of a case is unprecedented, it changes the law in some way because a new interpretation of the law is required.
The same is true for our thinking. If we can look for and find a new way of looking at something we think we understand, it becomes a case that we haven’t resolved yet in our understanding.
A point of view that is unprecedented in our life, requires that we change our understanding.
But only if we pay attention to it.
