I make an awful lot of mistakes. That’s a bit of a blunt admission, but it’s a true one. Of course, it’s sometimes not entirely straightforward actually identifying a mistake when it occurs. After all, the idea is somewhat subjective, as whether or not something is a mistake depends on how people view the outcome; whether the outcome of an action has positive or negative consequences for people. I suppose that’s the problem, really: it’s not just a question of whether the consequences are positive or negative for the person who performed the action, but also for all others involved, both directly and indirectly. You end up with a situation where one person may view something as a mistake, yet another person might be satisfied – pleased, even – with the outcome.
So how, then, can I state that I make a lot of mistakes? I define my mistakes as being the actions I perform – the things I do – that I then regret, or feel bad about, or wish I’d done differently. Maybe I’m too quick to judge, and should spend more time looking around to see if others have benefitted from the things I’ve done… To an extent, I do do that, if only in part. I only regret my actions if they end up hurting/harming somebody in some way, either physically or mentally. If it was just myself I hurt, I wouldn’t really care; it’s when I hurt the people I care about that I feel bad, and dwell on my actions, and – to be honest – I end up in a right old state.
Is this me overthinking again? Most probably. Sometimes I feel guilty for things that aren’t even more fault, or are out of my power/control. I hate seeing injustice in the world, and so when I see a situation where I could act, yet don’t, I later feel bad; I feel guilty and view my earlier lack of intervention as a ‘mistake’. I end up forgetting a lot of these situations as time goes by. I put a mental block around them, as otherwise it’s all too much to cope with. From time to time, though, especially when I’m feeling down, a lot of them resurface, and I end up seeing vivid images of all the things I’ve done – or haven’t done – in the past that have led to negative consequences. I could easily just say this is all part of my ‘curse‘, how I can’t control these thoughts and how they haunt me. I think, however, that when I experience these memories I actually ‘relish’ them; they remind me of my humanity, of my vulnerability. It gets said again and again that you shouldn’t dwell on the past, but experiences are there for us to learn from. What if we learn nothing? Should we completely forget about them? Or should we remember them from time to time until we finally learn the lessons concealed within them?
