Mistakes Pt2: Response to Mistakes

In my last post I covered that as a society we like to judge based on single mistakes. That messing up is a breaking feature in our relationships and in our views of famous and powerful people.

It wasn’t until the last paragraph or so in the post that I started talking about a better way of handling mistakes. Even then, my thoughts were relatively sparse for the topic and since then I have felt the need to elaborate on my ideas of the potential impact a positive view on mistakes can have.

Grace and forgiveness.

Two words that you think you have, but in the face of adversity are hard to come by. Both for the victim and the offender, any sort of willingness to let go of the pain caused by the mistake is replaced by an immediate need to defend against the unpleasant nature of the situation. We try to create a territory around who we are, one we think we need to defend when it is intruded. Regardless of if you made the mistake or it was the other party, both sides are usually equally hurt and defensive about it and it hurts the potential for growth as individuals and the group.

But if you are capable to see beyond the present pain, beyond the mistakes, beyond the consequences. If you are capable to gauge another person’s actions over time, to see through the immediate face of isolated actions, to read the true nature of an individual rather than the effect of their actions, that is where amazing things begin to happen.

It should not be our mistakes that define us, but rather our response to mistakes, as that shows our true nature.

Which ever side you find yourself on, it is your response to mistakes that shows your true character. A lot more so than the mistake itself.

We all know it.

That’s why the saying “we all make mistakes” gets thrown around so often. Yet when you are in the deep end, we so quickly forget how much a little grace and forgiveness could go. So I urge you, the next time you are involved in a mistake, breathe and forgive.

Is it really worth pursuing the anguish you feel because of the mistake, desperately attempting to get revenge by inflicting the pain you feel? Where does that get you? You get no gain from other people’s suffering. As hard as it is, forgiving the other person is in a way better for you than it is for the person you are forgiving.

This is something I am having a hard time right now with. Through some interesting circumstances, a conflict was created between myself and my friend (see Pt1). Although neither party really made a “mistake”, I had taken all of the blame for the conflict. Because of this, I am both wishing that the other party would be willing to see past my “mistake”, and give me a second chance as I care about my friend a lot.

However, I still largely struggle with forgiving them as well. What they did was understandable, but still hurts a lot. Especially because their reaction to my actions probably had a much more wide spread consequence than they realized.

But I refuse to give into the anger and pain. It is not the man I want to be. And so I have started to implement a better way to say I am sorry, for when I am the offender. As for when someone hurts me with their mistake, I do my best to let go and give them a second chance; something I wish everyone would learn to do.

Toby out.

Mistakes Pt1: Single Mistake Society

Oddly enough this isn’t my first post. I realize this post should probably be an introduction of sorts, but that can come later and I just wanted to get this idea down.

We are a single mistake society.

Scrutiny, jealousy, superiority. For whatever reason we often enjoy and relentlessly punish other people’s mistakes. That regardless of what that person stood for or who they were without the mistake, we criticize them with little room for redemption. Although this is more frequent of those in powerful/famous positions, it happens to everyone, a disappointing proclamation of the state of human-being interaction.

What brought this up for me, was the the airline executive actually being sentenced for 1 year jailtime for the scene she caused over how some nuts were served to her on a plane. In the incident she forced the plane to go back to its gate, which truly did endanger more than just the people involved in the altercation. However, the internet rapidly became more so fascinated in the fact that she was angered over some nuts.

One mistake. Her reputation gone.

We don’t know why she got so angry. We don’t know what had happened previous to it that would have caused such a reaction. We judge purely on the outcome, an artifact of our general inability, or even negligence to empathize. She was judged on a world-wide scale and punished severely by her country.

“But the judge said her tantrum, widely covered by international news media, damaged the “national image” of South Korea.”  – NY Times

One mistake. Thought to be enough to damage the image of an entire country.

How pathetic is that.

I’ve experienced my own losses from single mistakes. Eight months ago, I lost a very close friend. The worst part is he didn’t die, but in my own reality that is what happened. What happened because of a single mistake I made.

I made the mistake of trusting people with something that most people don’t understand even if they say they have been through the same thing. I trusted him with the knowledge that I had suicidal thoughts. I was never close to ever actually killing myself, but the mistake I made was expressing myself in a way that gave him a scare about it.

Everything I had done for him, for his family, our friends, none of it mattered. Who I was in his mind was defined by a single mistake I made. What I stood for and everything I fought for in the lives of the people around me disappeared in his and his family’s mind. And so in my reality he died; died because of my mistakes.

So the next time you are in the position of judging another person, particularly if they had hurt you because of a mistake, take a step back and try to view their reality. See what happened in their world that caused the mistake.

But most importantly be willing to extend grace and love, because usually when someone makes a mistake, they are hurt just as much as you are.

Toby out.