To err is human, to forgive – divine

I see a lot of people in communities all over America pulling together, helping one another and offering encouragement. I also see a lot of people blaming other people for things. Sometimes it’s just simply nobody’s fault… unless of course you are human… then it’s most likely somebody’s fault… LOL.

We all make mistakes. Some epic, some small, some regretful and some humorous. In the battle against human error, we may not always be able to avoid the mistakes, but it’s how you react to them after they are made that determines your character, your next steps and your ultimate destiny.

As a basketball coach I always had a drill called “missing your free throws.” I would have them go one on one against another player on the team in a free throw shooting contest. The game was 10 free throws. The rule was you had to intentionally miss one. It didn’t matter which one you missed. It could be in the first five shot or the second five shot.

The teaching was the frustration of failure or the ability to go forward in the face of adversity. Most people, when they make a mistake, it affects the next shot. It affects the rest of your day. It affects your week. And so on. What the mind dwells on, it gravitates toward.

Oh, I’ve made some doozies. As a journalist it kind of augments the problem because it is usually in relaying story details, getting names spelled right, dates correct and identifying people in pictures correctly. And, oh yeah… we are professionals so we can’t make mistakes. Yeah right. But it’s in cutting some slack that I am speaking today.

Frustration attacks all of us when our train derails. At that point we give into fear and the greatest fear is that we’ve made a mistake that caused the derailment. If you’ve had fingers pointed at you anywhere in your past and perhaps someone screaming, “it was all your fault,” it is like the skin being scraped from your body until you no more have that wonderful “thick skin.”

Frustration in the midst of crisis demands someone to blame. It’s perhaps human nature, or perhaps what we’ve educated ourselves to do. Someone’s to blame.

Perhaps what we go through in every day life is not as graphic or violent as we make it out to be, but we still like to play the blame game.

And when we find what we perceive to be the problem, it doesn’t negate the mistake. I’m sorry doesn’t negate the mistake. You can’t go back and unchanged what has been done.

So. Mistakes. How to counteract them.

First of all, learn to laugh at yourself. I always say, “laugh at yourself and the whole world will laugh AT you.” I think that’s good entertainment for those in the world around us.

Secondly, learn to say “I’m sorry” rather than looking for an excuse. Sometimes we don’t need justification, but we do need to right the wrong. And remember that righting the wrong doesn’t eradicate the mistake.

Thirdly, realize in the scope of things that it will pass. (And Karma will catch up with the one pointing a finger – you know who you are.) I think my favorite Bible verse has always been, “And it came… to pass.” Things come to humble us, to teach us, to make us laugh, and yes, sometimes to make us cry. And when they do, look back at it only for perspective, not for condemnation.

And most importantly, we must realize that our failure sometimes can be our greatest teacher. So, you either blame someone else and are in denial to your own mistake, in which case you don’t change something that you don’t admit is wrong, or you own it and learn from it and go forth more educated and a little wiser. You learn things in the dark that you could never learn in the light.

Mistakes are common. Admissions are powerful. Forgiveness is divine.

A great tip is not to focus on the mistake, but to focus on the solution – if you were ever again to be in that situation. That’s growth.

To tell on myself one more time, though, I did ask a very rotund waitress one time when she was “due” and if she knew the sex of the baby. I found out she wasn’t with child. Yikes. I couldn’t go into hiding deep enough.

It was one of those awkward moments that are laughable with passing time.