"Making mistakes is what makes us human". From that point of view, Alan had to be very human indeed.

Mistakes, accidents and incidents seemed to follow Alan like hungry dogs, and more often than not it ended up with him being blamed for whatever had gone wrong. His father was usually disappointed, annoyed or outright angry when the boy came home with another knee wound, a damaged bike, a broken backpack, or anything else that could be ruined by 'careless actions'. His mother, however, always met him with a small smile, and so often repeated the same famous phrase that Alan had started to doubt its validity.

Was it really mistakes that separated humans from other things and beings in this world? Surely animals could make mistakes as well, he'd seen several examples of just such on the internet. And it wasn't like all of the things happening to him was even his fault, so how could they all count as mistakes making him more human? Was it simply the way the world was meant to be, that he was meant for small accidents and incidents? Thoughts like this often troubled his mind, and in his quest to figure out how the world works, he started studying maths, physics and life sciences.

What he found throughout his studies was a rather eye opening experience. It seemed to him that almost all important scientific discoveries were due to some accident or careless behaviour from some tired or overworked scientist. Like the discovery of PTFE, more commonly known as Teflon, a very important material for scientific research, but also surprisingly practical for everyday applications. That some guy managed to discover this by accidentally leaving another compound in air overnight, instead of in a carefully controlled atmosphere, spoke volumes of the importance of making mistakes in the name of science. Mistakes, it seemed, weren't as negative as many believed them to be, a point which he frequently argued to his father after his latest mishap. And life proved him right, at least in his mind, when in his late twenties, Alan accidentally stumbled into a beautiful woman at the university where he worked. Taken in by the flustered and apologetic professor who in his rush to class had accidentally stumbled right into her, the girl surprised herself by accepting Alan's invitation to coffee as a way of apologizing for the incident. One accident soon lead to another, and it didn't take long before they were happily married and expecting.

Alan had realized that he seemed to be hounded by bad luck throughout most of his life, but at some point he had simply accepted them as a fact of life, and instead focused on the positive aspects of whatever existence threw at him. His life was fairly stable economically, he had gotten away with minimal allergies, and in general had few medical issues. He had kept up his studies as a professor, but the teaching was what brought him the most satisfaction in his work. Maxwell’s equations, to take an example, had impressed him when he began work on his first degree, and it still satisfied him to derive the relatively simple equations that explained such complex phenomena, in front of new and promising students.

Life had treated Alan well, by his own count, balancing out the bad luck with the good. A little stumbling here, a broken vase there, meant little in the grand scheme of things, and could never compare to the joy of watching his children grow up. Alan had also come to a new understanding of his mother’s old phrase about mistakes and humanity. In his view, it wasn’t that making mistakes made people human, but that the ability to make mistakes separated living things from dead things. He genuinely believed mistakes were what pushed life forward, constantly forcing it to adapt to new changes, as mistakes were constantly made one way or another.

Alan realized he had probably made his last mistake when his car lost all traction on the ice covered road and started skidding over towards the oncoming trailer. He had a few moments to regret his decision to take the car instead of the train that day. It was like he had always known some sort of serious accident would eventually find him. He hadn’t exactly changed the world during his life, but he believed he had positively affected a lot of people through his teaching, and his family had been a greater blessing than he could have ever asked for. He still asked, in the final moments, for more time with them, for their happiness and well-being. He was not a religious man, but the imminent prospect of perishing pushed him to try every option, no matter how far fetched. It went about as well as he expected.

Alan’s soul returned to the great cycle of reincarnation, free from all his earthly attachments. Or at least, that was how it was supposed to be, but even his soul seemed to be prone to accidents. Instead of being relieved of all his burdens from his past life, Alan retained his memories, and brought them with him to his new life.

On a strange and foreign world, Alan opened his new eyes for the first time.