Mistakes
We all make mistakes. Every one of us makes mistakes, large and small, throughout our lives. The mistakes may arise from poor judgment, imperfect vision of the future or misunderstanding of ourselves. They may result in no adverse consequences, they may result in devastation and ruin of our lives or they may, sometimes, have good results. How should we deal with our penchant to make mistakes, to do the wrong thing?
I suppose the first question is what is a mistake. And when do we identify our mistakes. If a mistake is only action that has adverse consequences, we may not see a mistake for a long time after the action. If mistakes can only be identified years later, there's nothing to be done. Usually, on this approach, it's too late to do anything about our mistakes when we identify them so we can relax, learn from the mistake and do better with our future actions. If, on the other hand, a mistake is immediately recognizable, if an action is not what we intended to do, perhaps we can correct it somehow. Perhaps by taking corrective action, we can avoid any consequences of the mistaken action. Then we only have to worry about whether the new action was a mistake.
If I'm right that mistakes sometimes have good results maybe we shouldn't do anything. Similarly, if our mistakes have no adverse consequences why devote the time and energy to changing anything. In those instances, we should let well enough alone, go forward and consider the question whether we really made a mistake. The problem is that it's hard to predict the consequences of our actions and we probably need to identify mistakes, in the sense of unintended actions, to avoid mistakes in the future.
The Dalai Lama is quoted as saying that when we realize we've made a mistake we should take immediate corrective action. The problem I have is, even if we can identify our mistakes in a timely fashion, we rarely know what corrective action is appropriate. We know we can't go back in time and undo our actions. We know that apologies, while sometimes comforting, don't really correct a mistake. Maybe all we can do is try to learn, to learn how to avoid mistakes in the future, to learn to improve our conduct, to learn how, at least, to keep our mistakes from hurting others.
If a mistake can be corrected, correct it. But look forward. Don't dwell on mistakes or waste energy on trying to remake history. Learn from mistakes but don't let them ruin the rest of your life. At least, maybe we can learn to help others in the process.
4-5-04
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