Did you think we should never make mistakes? Mistakes are the way we learn at a different level. We cope, then problem solve, and in the end, the lessons of mistakes make us better people if we do it well. We do things differently in the present and future. We remember the pain in the past and conquer a fear of having it happen again, and our path forward becomes easier. We may become wary of similar circumstances, but we use the lessons we learn as nothing more than teaching tools that teach us how to make recompense, how to forgive ourselves and carry on.
In fact, you can be a very difficult person if you never admit your mistakes. No one learns anything. No one is inspired by your ability to cope, make restitution and forgive yourself. Like we were when we were children, we learn from other people’s mistakes. Hopefully! When we handle mistakes well, we inspire pothers, not just ourselves.
If we do not admit our mistakes, we can find that we pull others down with us. We cannot change our mistakes, but we can move forward with new coping skills, new knowledge about what lead us to the mistakes, and we can plan ahead for times we might meet similar circumstances. I have always been a slow learner, I think. I have to meet a lesson several times before I get it. Sometimes the level of pain incurred gets worse with every situation until I do finally get it.
There are never any perfect circumstances, really. We are going to stumble and we are going to fall, sometimes right on our face. But we learn. With every mistake we learn restraint, we learn to take positive actions, and we learn to forge on. Otherwise, we live a life of guilt, shame, and never do rise to a new level of awareness.
Of course, there are things we cannot control. We can only control our reaction to such things. We can learn to live in the moment with conscious effort to appreciate times that are not difficult, people who are not difficult, times when we are made vulnerable by things out of our control. We learn to prune out things we know we are not good at. We learn when to allow relationships to go. We learn who our support people are. With wide-eyed shock, I was finally taught the lesson that a friend I had was certainly NOT support, encouragement or even compassionate with me. I had wondered, with how different we were, why I continued to remain close to her. It was not a give and take relationship. She was a social event planner. We had nothing more in common. In the end, I knew why we were friends. She had a really tough lesson for me to learn.
Mistakes teach us to accept responsibility and to accept consequences. We then, can acknowledge the lesson and, without regret, step forward into new possibilities. Or, we can get stuck in regret and dwell on our mistakes rather than focus on the lessons being taught, and, hopefully, learned. We learn that we have choices. We learn what choices work and what ones do not. We become a deeper, more authentic person through the making of mistakes. We learn where to put our energy and with whom. At least, we are given the opportunity to.
Go ahead, make a few mistakes and evaluate them. Did we survive? Yes, we did. Did we become a better person because of the mistakes? If not, why? What can we do to progress? What can we do to ensure as much peace and dignity and grace as possible in this crazy thing we call life? Screw up and make the best of it!
©Carol Desjarlais 9/11/23
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