Shake it off

Yesterday I made a mistake. It wasn't an end-of-the-world mistake, but it did cause some chaos and upset that was avoidable. Sigh.

My official position about mistakes is that I hate them and avoid them. This is the same position that approximately 100% of the people I know take. I think most of the people I don't know take this position as well.

A teacher of mine used to say that mistakes are the quickest way to learn. He told the story of a vice president at a Fortune 500 company who made a $3 million mistake on the job. The VP promptly went to the CEO to submit his resignation. The CEO said to him, "You can't resign. I just made a $3 million investment in your training!"

So from that point of view, it's good to make mistakes if you want to learn fast. Celebrate your mistakes! But really, we're just not going to do that.

David Swanson said about mistakes that it's okay to make them as long as you learn from them. So you just make a mistake once. (Someday people will know who David Swanson was, but for now let me just say that he was the man who made Gourasana's incarnation possible.)

The only good thing about repeating a mistake is that you know when to cringe. I read that quote somewhere.

So let's be honest. Mistakes suck - despite all these great things people say about them. It's feels kind of like taking a punch to the face. So like a boxer, you just have to shake it off and hope that none of your teeth are loose.

Not one wise person ever says to dwell on the mistakes you've made. You want to admit the mistake, get the benefit and then move on -- to your next mistake.

And lastly I include a quote from The Lady* because I think she says it all:

You can't do it right, you can't get it wrong, you can only let go.

Thank you for listening and good night.

* You can read more of The Lady's beautiful prayers and quotes at http://www.theladyinprayer.org/