Getting it wrong

Mistakes are an essential part of learning, but only if we use them that way. I have a story to tell, there will be some sort of moral at the end.

A bit back, I messed up, hugely. I knew that I’d messed up because I got an email that made this very clear to me, and it wasn’t stuff I could easily fix or undo. I went through a fair amount of angst. The simplest response to the email was just to stay away – admit I was of no use and leave it at that, doing nothing else that could cause further discomfort to me, or to the person I’d offended. That might have been the end of the story, a small chapter unhappily closed, while I tried to learn how not to make the same mistakes again.

I could have gone back and checked, or asked or clarification that I was understanding it right, but I was afraid of taking more damage, and afraid of making a further nuisance of myself. Plus, I thought I knew what I’d got. Fear, and an odd sort of over-confidence a work there.

I was very lucky, in that some pretty random events conspired a couple of weeks later to make me go back for another conversation, about something else entirely. Around doing that, it became evident that yes, I really had cocked up. What I’d got wrong, above and beyond all else, was how I’d understood the key email. I’d come to it with all my baggage and history. I’m used to being told I’m too much and too difficult; people genuinely have said things like “our lives should never cross again” to me. So I expect to find that, I expect to be a problem.

I hadn’t been told to go away. I’d been given an option on doing something that might be protective of me, that might make my life easier. What I’d done in response made it look like I’d accepted that offer. I created an impression I did not mean to make. It all took a bit of unpicking, and that unpicking required some abandoning of pride, and that was well worth doing. What it cost in feeling exposed, it more than made up for in getting through to a better place.

Language is a very imprecise thing. We don’t all use words in the same way. Not all of us are word people, and many have to interpret into words from however they actually think. I’m very wordy, but that’s no guarantee that what I mean will come across as intended. We all bring our own stories, baggage, beliefs, assumptions, fears and hopes to every conversation. Taking that into account it may be some cause for wonder that any of us manage any deeper communications at all.

I went through a lot of grief for the sake of some misunderstood words. I probably also caused a fair amount of discomfort at the same time. The only way to do differently required courting a potential humiliation, and I nearly didn’t risk it. That kind of self-protection isn’t worth much. It only lets us imagine we haven’t been humiliated because we didn’t go back for seconds, rather than facing the real cost. There is so much scope for getting it wrong. Next time, I will just go back and ask.