I messed up. I made a mistake. I haven’t written 124 blogs; I’ve
written 122. Apparently, two of
the published blogs were rough drafts that somehow got published. They were actually incomplete first
drafts. The final drafts were
published. (I’ve Been Feeling a
Little Down Today, January 17, and Worse Than a Hangover, January 20.)
This means two
things and I don’t know which bothers me more:
1. It means I have two more blogs to
write, 28 now, in 10 days.
2. It means my 100th blog was
actually my 98th blog.
At the moment I
feel frustrated and embarrassed. I
can hear voices from the past saying, “You can’t do anything right!”
This statement
actually caused me to make more mistakes and, at the same time, be extremely
hard on myself. I’m sitting with
that statement right now, realizing I’ve been believing it and repeating it to
myself all my life. I’m reminded
of a time when I was in the UCSD teaching program and I was up with several
other students working on a paper.
I typed mine but it wouldn’t save.
So I typed it again and it still wouldn’t save. This was back in the days of the
plastic floppy disk and unbeknownst to me, the disk was damaged. My paper was late even though I had
stayed up all night diligently working.
In addition, there was a fellow student, who was also one of my
supervisors. She was in emotional
pain and she asked if I would go to Denny’s with her so she could talk. In an effort to show that I was a
diligent student, I said no. There
are very few instances in my life that I would do differently, but this is one
of them. To this day, I still
regret choosing a principal over a person.
In both instances
I tried to do the right thing and I messed up. I’m reminded of a quote by Chris Claremont from the Wolverine Limited
Series:
“No matter how hard I strive
for inner serenity, I screw up. So
why bother? I failed myself. Because I lost myself. And yet, the patterns of life are as
fluid as those of this gravel. I
smooth the stones…new patterns emerge…chaos becomes order. The wheel turns. And from that order…peace?”
Recently, I hurt a
friend by overreacting to something that I misinterpreted. Then over a different issue, I hurt my
friend again even though I stayed calm. Now I have a damaged relationship and
two more blogs two write. Sometimes
the voice in my head doesn’t whisper; it shouts, “YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING RIGHT!”
Still despite
Wolverine’s angst and my pain, the truth is different. Consider Wolverine’s conclusion to his
apparent failure:
“The key isn’t winning… or
losing. It’s making the
attempt. I may never be what I
ought to be, want to be…but how will I know unless I try? Sure, it’s scary, but what’s the
alternative? Stagnation… a safer,
more terrible form of death. Not
of the body, but of the spirit. An
animal knows what it is and accepts it.
A man many know what he is…but he questions. He dreams. He
strives. Changes. Grows.”
There’s more truth
here. In pursuing personal growth,
I need to recognize that not everything I do is wrong. In fact, I probably do more things
right than wrong. In fact, I know
I do some things extremely well.
It’s a sad fact of life that most of us focus on the negative in
ourselves and each other. The
mistake is not the mistake. The
mistake is letting mistakes define or deter us.
I just saw this
funny posting.
“I’m a
mistake. My mom didn’t mean to
have me. Which is great, because
whenever I make a mistake, I can be like, “Whoa! I’m not even supposed to be here.”
Rob O'Reilly
So I’m not going
to focus on what I’ve done “wrong.”
Often, unless I deliberately try to hurt someone, I don’t think I can
actually do any wrong. I can just
have learning experiences.
I will fix the
relationship with my friend.
I will work just a
little harder on my blogs.
I will not give
up.
I will Get Started
and Keep Going.
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