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Accepting mistakes

“If you don’t make mistakes, you aren’t really trying.”~ Coleman Hawking

“If you don’t make mistakes, you aren’t really trying.”~ Coleman Hawking

As we bumble along through life many things become clear.  One epiphany which most of us have at some point is that we can’t possibly do everything right, but we can try our best.  Part of not doing everything right is the learning that comes with it.

We learn about people’s character, when the chips are down.  Who comes forward to pull you up out of the mud when you get stuck in it and who lets you flounder around?  Who learns from their mistakes and who doesn’t?  Who wallows in others failures and who asks questions, so they can understand the truth of it?

It is always easier to point fingers, lay blame, find excuses and lie than to look within and often times the other alternatives seem a lot more appealing...but at some point in the quiet, reflection happens.

Sophia Lauren said simply “mistakes are part of the due one pays for living a full life.”  I agree.  I also would add that to never make mistakes is to never really live...and to never admit to your mistakes is to never really grow.

We have all met those annoying know-it-all types who no matter what you say have ran further, travelled more, climbed higher and somehow become a bloody expert at everything without putting in the time.  Making a mistake doesn’t make you an idiot, it makes you human.  Not learning from you mistakes makes you an idiot.  Learning from your mistakes and going on to make more makes you brave, but you have to do to really know.

I had a war veteran say to me once that she wasn’t brave, but I say she was.  She might not have gone overseas to the front lines, but she stepped into the unknown when she enlisted and that is brave.  She signed up not knowing where she was going or when.  She made a difference and she stood for something.

There are always those waiting for others to stumble and fall.  Sometimes it is because they deserve to and sometimes it because others aren’t nearly so brave.  They use others mistakes as a reason not to take those steps of their own.  I for one have made many mistakes over the years.  I have hurt people without knowing so at the time. When I have, I tried to rectify the situation.  There are others who hurt with intent to justify wrong behaviour.

I don’t always do everything right nor do I do everything wrong.  Somewhere in the middle, I flounder through life...brushing off the dirt when I fall, but always getting up.  I just know I don’t want to be someone who never makes mistakes or someone who never takes responsibility for their own wrongdoing.    I hope most of us can take a few leaps now and again, fingers crossed and maybe toes.

“Everyone has ocean’s to fly, if they have the heart to do it. Is it reckless? Maybe. But what do dreams know of boundaries?”

~ Amelia Earhart