For some of us, being flawed seems almost fatal. Whether we make a mistake or someone else makes a mistake that hurts us, we rarely think that’s just being human. I’m not talking about human error when you spill your morning coffee all over. I mean even the type of human error where a person deliberately hurts another person.
Think about this for a second. How much easier do you think your life would be if you just chalked up mistakes (yours or someone else’s) to human error? I don’t mean to walk around delusional about reality but how much more could we accomplish if we stopped being angry and/or disappointed in ourselves and others?
Well for the most part, I’ve chosen to do that. When I screw up, I don’t get down on myself anymore. I just admit I’m human and digest the lesson the mistake taught me so I can do better next time. When someone does something and I end up collateral damage because of their choices, I allow myself to feel sad about it, but I remind myself they are human and just to stay true to who I am.
When I was going through my divorce, I had friends telling me to fight more during the settlement because I was entitled to more. First and foremost, what I was entitled to was to find peace. So, I accepted that my partner was flawed and so was I, but in the end, we were just different. Walking away with the fact that I stayed true to who I was, wanted to be and chose to be was way more valuable than anything with monetary value I could have walked away with.
In a previous article I talked about feeling and thinking. So, when I had to start over, yes I felt sad and lonely and scared but I didn’t allow myself to get consumed by feeling. I felt but I simultaneously thought through things. Even though I felt all those emotions, I made myself keep taking steps forward. Of course, it was hard! But every day it got a little easier until one day I stopped to enjoy a moment and realized, I was happy.
In fact, I’m sure there will be some of you reading this article and thinking that I don’t know what he or she did to you and there’s no way you could chalk that up to human error. So, I’ll leave you with this reminder…. thinking “you can’t” is human error.
