How Did I Just Do That?!

Are you ever amazed at the stupid things you do at times? Like you’re early for an appointment, so there’s no reason to hurry, yet you want to ‘beat that traffic light.’ It defies logic and you can’t believe the irony that suddenly you’re running a red light, and what is worse, there’s a camera at this set of traffic lights! You stew for weeks that a fine and demerit points are on their way to you from the Police Department, but they never arrive. PHEW!! -- the one that got away.

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Bewildered we might be, and astounded in retrospect at how silly we’ve been, but we should understand, it’s basically our nature -- to make silly mistakes. If we haven’t made a clanger lately it surely won’t be too long before the next one comes along.

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We need to have a lot of grace towards ourselves don’t we? We need to forgive ourselves and pass up the opportunity to slap our foreheads in disgust.

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I went to an occupational safety and health forum some time ago and the keynote speaker spoke about the number of doctors and airline pilots who made elementary mistakes in the operating theatre and in the cockpit. We don’t like to think about the fact that while our lives are in a surgeon’s or pilot’s hands they might be making key skill or knowledge errors -- but it happens. It’s called ‘human factors’ and there’s a whole field of psychological and physiological science around it.

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When we’ve failed why not:

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~ Be gentle with ourselves (as per The Desiderata);

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~ Accept the things we cannot change (as per The Serenity Prayer) -- we won’t ever be perfect; and,

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~ Understand that God is forgiving -- he’ll forgive anything you do if you’re genuinely sorry.

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It’s not really a big deal. Berating yourself is not going to achieve anything worthwhile. Forgive yourself, make the thing right as far as others are concerned (as far as possible), and then simply move onto the next thing with a smile.

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Copyright © 2008, Steven John Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.