Now I don't know how many of you are like me, I like to beat myself up for my mistakes all the time. Humans have this inability to understand how perfectly imperfect we are, and when we make mistakes, we like to act as if it were the first time we've ever made a mistake in our lives and we dwell in it and dwell in it and dwell in it.
This time, we hurt because we are hurting ourselves, we realize how stupid we were or how mean were and we recognize that what we did was not something we would usually do so we stay stuck on that. Or we hurt because the consequences of other people's mistakes are hurting us and the pain is so deep that it seems like you are never going to get out of that pit.
I don't know how you react when you make mistakes but I can tell you about my reactions. I used to make mistakes and not care about them, I didn't think about them because to me, they weren't mistakes. As I grew older I realized that (shocker) I'm not perfect!!! (I know, I know, just let that sink in for a second...) And that I'm not the only person in this world, the universe does not revolve around me. There was a bit of an attitude change because if I made a mistake I would condemn myself and beat myself up for it but I wouldn't do anything to correct my mistake unless someone spoke to me about it. However, to me I was still an idiot, I was still stupid and terrible for even making the mistake in the first place, as if perfection was an option for me in my humanity. If you're beating yourself up over your mistakes, just don't, it's as if a zebra was beating itself up over it's stripes, you can't help making mistakes, we are all human.
My reaction when people made mistakes that affected me was pity, I pitied myself and I made myself the victim. Yes, life is unfair, sometimes we are going to get hurt simply because we are caught in the midst of things, God changed my perspective which allowed me to let go of my suffering a bit. When people make mistakes that affect you, realize that they may be hurting you, but the reality is that they are hurting themselves even more. It's sad really, I look at the people that have seriously hurt me before and I see the consequences of their mistakes affecting them now and I begin to forget that they hurt me in the first place.
Humans are bound to make mistakes, it's a reality. There are two quotes that I really like that help me deal with those moments when I make mistakes:
"You live and you learn" You see life...life is this big book full of fables, each page is a day, a day of your story. Inside that day there are many stories, some days you're going to make really big mistakes, some days you're going to make little mistakes, but at the end of every fable there's always a lesson, a moral to be learned. That's life, you have to live it to learn its lessons, you have to dig into your mistakes so that the lessons can dig into your heart. It is your choice whether or not you want to learn from your life but never forget that whatever happens, only YOU can live YOUR life, if you don't learn the lessons that are set before you, no one else can learn them on your behalf.
“You acknowledge your mistakes, and learn from them. Then you pick up and move on.” When you make a mistake, first things first, recognize that it's a mistake. Don't kid yourself and start blaming other people. The second thing you do is you learn from it, don't let guilt take over you, look to see what is there for you to learn in that situation. Then you do something about it, whether it's fixing things or apologizing, but you can't move on unless you do something about the situation. Situations in life are there to push our character, to take us beyond our lines drawn by pride, sadness, anger or whatever. Life keeps moving for a reason, we are not meant to be stationary, we are not meant to dwell in our mistakes, Christ wants us to live life to the fullest, whether you are a believer or not I'm sure we can all agree that letting the pain of our mistakes affect us on a daily basis sends us into a vicious cycle of guilt and pain that does not let us live life to our full potential
Yes, sometimes your mistakes involve other people and they hurt other people, but if you really cared about that person's feelings, you wouldn't keep doing that to them, you would learn your lesson. At the end of the day, the consequences of your mistakes can drag down many, but they can only drown you.
Everybody makes mistakes, there are those who let the pain of their mistakes rule their lives and those who take that suffering and turn it into determination to live out their lesson.
Humans are bound to make mistakes, and we are bound to be affected by other people's mistakes. You are not perfect yourself, don't expect perfection from others. There's a reason why Christianity is based on God's forgiveness towards us, because whether we like it or not, forgiveness is the foundation of perfect love towards those who are imperfect.
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