Sometimes we lose our way.
We all make mistakes. We focus on the wrong things. We pursue goals at all costs. We teeter on ethical and moral cliffs. We get too far down a slippery slope. We steal. We cheat. We lie. We deceive others. We deceive ourselves. We don’t open ourselves up to our friends. We see crime or fraud and don’t speak out.
You can be a good person and still exercise poor judgment.
Just because you failed doesn’t mean you can’t succeed. We all fail. Mentally resilient people realize that its not failure that defines your identity but how you respond.
— Shane Parrish (@ShaneAParrish) May 11, 2019
In these moments, we’re not the friend others deserve, the partner others choose, the child our parents raised, the exemplar we wish to be, nor the person we’re capable of being.
It can happen to the best of us. We’re human. We all make mistakes.
[quote]Just because we’ve lost our way doesn’t mean that we are lost forever. In the end, it’s not the failures that define us so much as how we respond.[/quote]
Just because we’ve lost our way doesn’t mean that we are lost forever. In the end, it’s not the failures that define us so much as how we respond. We all get steered off course at some point in our lives. What really counts isn’t that we make mistakes but the choices that follow those mistakes.
A teen who gets in trouble with the law, for example, can accept responsibility for his actions, change his behavior, and go on to lead the nation, or he can see only failure and tumble into a vicious cycle of committing ever-larger crimes.
It’s not that you stumble, it’s that you get back up. It’s not that you did something wrong but that you realize what’s happening and change. It’s not that you messed up as a friend or lover, it’s that you see ways you can be better. Having the wrong priorities is bad enough, but realizing that and refusing to change is worse. It’s not that you never took the time to smell the roses and admire the sunset; it’s that once you realize this, you take the time to notice.
“Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.”
— John Wooden
Mistakes are bad, no doubt, but not learning from them is worse. The key to learning from mistakes is to admit them without excuses or defensiveness, rub your nose in them a little, and make the changes you need to make to grow going forward. If you can’t admit your mistakes, you won’t grow.
“I like people admitting they were complete stupid horses’ asses.
I know I’ll perform better if I rub my nose in my mistakes.
This is a wonderful trick to learn.”
— Charlie Munger
“Forgetting your mistakes is a terrible error if you are trying to improve your cognition…
Why not celebrate stupidities!”
— Charlie Munger
“If anyone can refute me – show me I’m making a mistake or looking at things from
the wrong perspective — I’ll gladly change.
It’s the truth I’m after and the truth never harmed anyone.
What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.”
— Marcus Aurelius in Meditations