Trying to Avoid Mistakes

Posted by Helena Smole in Improved self-image on Sep 19th, 2011

»You cannot spend your life trying to avoid the mistakes I have made. You have to make your own.« This is a line from a movie. It is a piece of advice a mother gives her grown-up daughter. (Laws of Attraction with Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan)

Being a light comedy the movie still has some important messages in it. I would like to concentrate on the upper quotation. Many times we are so afraid of making the same mistake our parents did that we exaggerate in the opposite direction instead and make even worse mistakes. Or we as parents or older sisters or brothers try to protect the children or siblings so intensively that we nearly suffocate them.

Let me give you an example. As a teenager I was bothered by my parents (who was not?). I thought they quarreled too often. When I grew up, I decided to be different. So I did not quarrel at all. I agreed and swallowed anger instead. This was one of my major mistakes in life. I have been trying to correct that mistake ever since I realized it in 2003.

In my life of almost 40 years I have managed to learn that there is no other way in life but to make mistakes. Either we dare to make mistakes and learn something from them or we just go through life as if it were not ours. We let others decide about our lives, so we can blame them, if something goes wrong. It might be a comfortable way through life, but in my opinion the saddest thing is not being able to tell your grandchildren any interesting stories. So live, let live and make mistakes, correct them and move on would be a wiser thing to do I believe.

Of course I am not talking about making mistakes deliberately. That would be stupid and wrong. I am merely trying to say that avoiding all mistakes in life is impossible.

I am also not trying to say that all mistakes can be corrected. If we do something really bad that cannot be undone, than this will be our lesson of forgiving ourselves, which I personally find harder than forgiving others.

I would like to conclude this slightly too philosophical blog with a practical advice: be cautious and afraid of mistakes in the stage of preparation for action or decision, but do not let this fear just go on and on until you are on your death bed and still have not done anything about your life. You can read more about my mistakes and my fears in Balancing the Beast.