OUR MISTAKES DO NOT DEFINE US

Scared of fouling up, making a mistake, bungling up, and committing bloopers and blunders? Are you? But hey who isn’t. Any normal regular average guy and gal hate to make mistakes. “It’s embarrassing” – “OMG What a shame” – “I could go invisible right now” – “Oh brother, did I do that?” – “I feel like disappearing into the wall”…. Does that sound all too familiar to you?

Well, mistakes take all forms shapes and kinds -- there are small mistakes and big mistakes - And petty slip-ups and life changing oversights. What does it do really? Well, it can ruin a person’s life or make him an overnight celebrity (which isn’t a good reason to be famous for). Some may try to repair, redo, alter, camouflage, ignore, rationalize, overlook, or even find somebody who would (with a little persuasion) take the fall (politicians do that). And so all the frantic effort to save face, space, and grace going to all extent to achieve just that.

But really what else can one do?

Oh there is one and it’s not a popular thing to do. I don’t see many people do it. In fact, in consensus it seems to make them feel far worse than the boo-boo itself. Because it exposes their mortality, frailty, ignorance, imperfection – something nobody is comfortable with nor ready to admit.

I remember as a teenager (and that’s centuries ago) I would always be at loggerheads with my kid brother. So much that when a boo-boo occurs, his or mine (it didn’t matter), I would easily point the finger at him with “He did it!” He did that to me too, much to the consternation of our mom. So one day when we fouled up something in the kitchen, and as two separate fingers pointed at one another, Mom with eyes blazing said …. “Now see here, you two, own up to your mistake or you’ll be washing dishes for a month!”

‘Own up to your mistake’ – have always remembered that.

So that’s the first step and easily the rest will follow. It’s no crime to admit you’ve been wrong. There are zillions of people out there who have been wrong too. But you can make the big difference by owning up to your mistake and from there move on to better things, to healing wounded hearts and souls, to get your self-esteem back, to pick yourself up and say ‘Okay, I’ve learned my lesson’ and become a wiser and smarter person than you were before.

Our mistakes do not define us; it’s what we do afterwards that does.