The Joy of Making Mistakes

Since I am learning – in a process, rather than through any sudden realisation – that the people I am lucky to meet and socialise with, are truly loving, thoughtful, generous and kind, I am learning another lesson: That making mistakes can actually become more of a joy than a nuisance.

If we can admit that, while endeavouring to do our best, making mistakes is no big deal, then there is nothing we cannot try for.  Without the fear that shadows most perfectionist agendas, (“They will think less of me if I make a fool of myself” / I will be condemned and cast off into outer darkness if I am late for this meeting”) most actions become both less and more valuable, whatever the outcome.  Less important, in that one thinks, “Well, so what if this goes wrong? No big deal…what do we mean by ‘wrong’ anyway?” and more important, in that doing a small thing deliberately is the first step to doing the next thing deliberately, a process that leads you forward into lots of new adventures.  Maybe that doesn’t sound like a big deal to you, but to me – well, Wow! – I can get some kind of life, without the ever-present fear that I might get lost, I might get killed, I might have to admit I failed….etc, etc etc.

Yes, okay, I admit it, I finally read most of that book, you know the one (all together now…) Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, which has some good messages for me, even if most of the book is about the opposite of fear.  The central message I collected was that, actually, the fear that underpins every other fear is that (I will feel devastated if this does not work out and…) I won’t be able to cope.  Such a small thing, and such a challenge, which is simply begging to be answered, ‘Of COURSE I will cope!  Just watch me!’ Especially to me, that kind of challenge is irresistible.  In Trapped I do mention that when someone takes the view that I won’t be able to manage something, I go all out to prove them wrong.  Seems a decent enough strategy, even if it has been based in stubborn-ness and being thrawn.  Now, though, I hope I can take a gentler view.  We are all similar, but different, and all capable of kindness and forgiveness, which is why making mistakes becomes more of a game than a life-and-death thing.

Just as well, really.

 

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