There is nothing terrible about making mistakes. The only bad thing is when we don’t grow up because of them. When we’re still making the same mistakes at fifty that we made at twenty — yeah, that’s stupid. We all do it, of course, because we’re all a little stupid. But more than anything else, we do it because of a lack of inner authority, which allows us to observe, name, and own the patterns we see. Mere trust in outer authority almost always creates fear-based and shame-based people, who easily resort to subterfuge or denial.
