Throughout my life, I have made many mistakes. I have embarrassed myself, embarrassed others, and been embarrassed for others. I have made some choices that, looking back, would have been better to avoid. And, thankfully, most of these mistakes were only made once, and I learned from them. However, that doesn’t stop me from remembering them occasionally in horrid detail.
I wonder if everyone remembers their mistakes. I would guess that they do, but it seems that I take it a step further. Sometimes a situation will remind me of something, and I will recall some long ago blunder. I usually make a face remembering said blunder, and cringe inwardly to myself. It seems that I can’t let myself forget when I do something stupid or embarrassing.
My guess that this is my mind’s way of forbidding me from doing these things again, or making more stupid mistakes. After all, if I remember how poorly it went when I tried to walk face first down the stairs on all fours, perhaps I will choose not to climb that way down a rock face in Tennessee.
On the other hand, sometimes I feel like my mind is so worried about feeling embarrassed again, that it refuses to let me do even normal things, like answer a question in class that I’m unsure about. The resulting embarrassment would be much less than, say, if I fell down the stairs face first, but still, past experiences hold me back.
Every once in a while, I try to step out of my comfort zone. I raise my hand to try on an answer, I volunteer to do a solo in our band, or I raise my hand to go first when giving a speech. Every time I do something like this, part of me screams Bad idea! You messed that up once! The other part of me is always tempted to listen, but I try to push that aside, so that I can keep trying.
Remembering our mistakes is important. That gives us a chance to learn from them, to grow and do better next time. However, sometimes we hold ourselves back, unwilling to put ourselves in situations where we could make the same mistakes. It’s okay to learn from your mistakes, as long as you do not let them control how you live your life.
There is a fine line between courage and stupidity, and embarrassment is just another tool to help us distinguish between the two. So remember, don’t remember every bad thing or cringe worthy thing that you’ve ever done. Just try to learn and grow from the ones that you can. See you next week!
“Reprinted from Hagel Publications, Inc. dba as Courier Newspapers”