Mistakes

Before we dwell to deeply into this subject I want you to look closely at my photo on your right. You don’t see anything special? Look again as I explain; my theory is that every time I make a mistake one hair turns gray. Then, if I make that mistake again that hair falls out. Are you beginning to see the real picture?
One day I looked at myself in the mirror and was shocked to see that my top was total gray and also I noticed a lot of skin showing. That was the day I started growing my beard so that I would have more room to display all of my mistakes! Just because I was growing older I had no intention of just sitting around and watching the grass growing. I wanted to learn new things and do new things and those new things often come with making mistakes.
That’s enough about me. Now, let’s get back to the important stuff. One of the most important things we always have to remember is this; ALL of our mistakes are now history, that’s UNCHANGEABLE history, they are now in the file labeled yesterday, they’re gone. So, what good are they?
Every mistake we have made throughout our lives has been a learning experience. How many times have you heard someone say “I’ll sure know better the next time”? If you hit your thumb with the hammer while driving that nail you’ll sure know better the next time! If you find yourself saying “if I only knew then what I know now” I want you to think about this; if you hadn’t made the first mistake how would you “know now”?
A good mistaker has many of those short phrases in their vocabulary; I should have, I knew it would BUT, I was told it wouldn’t work but I had to see for myself, etc.
Are you starting to get my point? The person that says they haven’t made mistakes is a person that hasn’t lived or they have a strange way with the truth.
Success is the top step of a stairway called mistakes! Progress, learning, is built on mistakes. If you don’t know what will not work how will you know what will? When you were small you were told not to touch that pan because it was hot but you still had to reach out and see for yourself. That one mistake probably will last you a lifetime it taught you not to touch a hot pan.
We must learn to convince ourselves, we aren’t making mistakes “we’re making learning experiences”. Some mistakes are very minor, others may cost us everything we’ve earned but look upon each as a learning tool. I personally try to never let one of my mistakes cause a hardship for others. For me, I can handle a battered body or ego but I don’t want one of my mistakes to cause pain for others. I will sometimes tell others the things I have learned from my mistakes but I try not to intrude on their learning experiences.
Each person’s heart is full of their dreams. Just like finger prints your dreams are like no others. We can’t let a few mistakes bottle up those dreams. It’s as simple as; no dreams, no mistakes, no life. In my lifetime I’m sure I’ve made hundreds, probably even thousands of mistakes, I’m not going to let those few mistakes (pardon me, learning experiences) keep me from letting my dreams continue to flow from my heart.