Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Getting over mistakes...

I'm not talking about lethal, unrepairable mistakes or tragic accidents, I am talking about mistakes, mostly material in nature, that can be repaired, replaced or somehow made up for. Like stupid car accidents or dropping a smart-phone in the swimming pool.

Incidents that drive us crazy and upset us for the rest of the day, the week or even the month depending on how stupid or costly they are. Most of the time, when this happens to me, I spend far too long commiserating with my bad luck and trying to push the toothpaste back into the tube, while thinking and crying “How can I be so stupid!” or trying to find some lame excuse or a convenient scapegoat. None of this is productive and gets us back to living as we should.

So, the first thing to do is face the consequences, thinks about options for repairing, replacing or indemnifying, then mentally face the reality and accept the “price tag”. It is equally important to honestly retrace what we did wrong and get it etched into our long-term memory so we won't repeat it ever again.

When all of this is done, immediately forgive oneself. That's right, forgiveness is the sanction, the end of the grieving process and the green light for going back to whatever we were doing. Further, forgiveness works like love, if we can't forgive ourselves, how can we ever forgive others?

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