Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

"Don’t Reinvent the Wheel"

These are words I despise.

I have heard these words my entire life, ESPECIALLY throughout my four years of college.

Don’t reinvent the wheel.

Excuse me, but I will reinvent the wheel if I want to. America is founded upon reinventing the wheel. We wanted to make a society that was better than the status quo! So if I want to reinvent the wheel, maybe I’ll make one that’s better.

For years I bought into these words. Now I can’t believe I was stupid enough to, even if they did come out of my professors’ mouths. Now I can hardly believe that they did come out of my business professors’ mouths, because of all people, they should be the ones to encourage innovation, invention and entrepreneurship. But it wasn’t just them – I heard it from many others.

Now, I can understand wanting to be efficient and not redundant, BUT telling an idealist college student that she shouldn’t reinvent the wheel doesn’t accomplish that, but rather squashes creativity.

I’ve realized now that I am a little bitter about this because I bought into it for so long. Just like the people who told me my family’s business would never succeed. Well, it’s been succeeding for five years now. Thank you very much. I’ve also been working for a software company that did reinvent the “wheel” and did it better than their competitors. Thank you very much.

The reason our transportation methods are stuck in the 1950s is because people bought into the “Don’t reinvent the wheel” mentality. The reason we’ve gotten nowhere with solar and wind power is because America bought into the “Don’t reinvent the wheel” mentality. The reason Generation X so annoys the rest of America is that Generation X doesn’t buy into the “Don’t reinvent the wheel” mentality. I’m a Gen X’er and I’m proud of it.

So I’m making up a new saying. It goes like this:

“I’m going to reinvent the wheel because my wheel is better than yours.”

I feel better now. Thank you very much.