Chin up! There's always tomorrow...
How many of us have heard, 'You did! Oh no! My word...you didn't! How could you? I would have never done that in a million years! I hope that you are prepared to suffer the consequences! Are you absolutely sure? Oh my God you have guts! You should have never...! You see I told you so...If only you had taken my advice or done this or done that...you would have never ended up in this predicament! Just look at you now. You see... you don't like to hear and that's what happens to people who don't hear! Tsk, tsk, tsk, I can not believe this...Tell me why! You just don't think do you? What could have possibly been going through that thick head of yours? Are you operating on all cylinders? You must be a few cards short of a deck! Ok come again please for the love of God, explain this one to me because I simply don't get your reasoning... I want you to learn from my mistakes...Don't make the same mistakes that I did...or how many of us have heard, "All you look me sin pan trouble ya! Look me cross ya, no! Me arm peets! You head bad! You gone off!
You no right in you head! It can't be! Mudder work ya now! Jesus Peace! Me belly! Tell me wha mek! No go through with it! No do it! Me a tell you wha sweet in goat mouth gon sour in eee bam, bam. Take warning! You mean to say, a talk to you and you still no hear! Stick must be break off in your ear. I aint want you walk the same path I walk. Mark me words a telling you...you going live to regret it eh! You are going to have to live with that mistake..."
All of these remarks more often than not are well intended. They are often said by the people who care for us and who want what is best for us. I often smile to myself when I hear any of these remarks and trust me I have heard my full share, enough to last for a lifetime. And when I hear these words I can't help but ask, "Are you perfect? Have you ever made a mistake? Do you think that you would ever make another mistake? Tell me about some of the grave mistakes that you have made or if you care to, the not so grave mistakes. Have you forgiven yourself for the mistakes that you have made? Don't you think that mistakes are there for a reason? Are mistakes, mistakes or quite possibly a blessing in disguise? Do you think that there are lessons to be learnt from mistakes? Do mistakes bring clarity?
Do you think that it is possible for one to go through life totally unscathed that is mistake proof? Don't you think that mistakes are just a part of the circle of life? Does making a mistake make you somehow less of a person? Does making a mistake means that I am the stupidest person to grace this earth? Why do we readily advertise our successes but our mistakes, well we would rather sell our souls to have them erased from the mind and memories of man? Are all mistakes bad? Don't you think that mistakes are God's little reminder to us that we are not Gods but mere mortals? Do you think that mistakes are the devil's little invention or vice to trap us into hell and eternal damnation and if so why is there redemption or recourse for these mistakes? Why is there a tomorrow, wherein and I am merely asking, wherein we can attempt to 'right' those mistakes?
Do you think that mistakes can be corrected? Do you ever ask who you would be had you not made those mistakes? Would you have been a stronger person or a weaker person? Would you have been as appreciative of life? Are you any wiser as a result? What is a mistake really? Who determines what a mistake really is? Are they things that we never intended to happen or are they things that we hoped would happen but something just went wrong along the way? Are mistakes, mistakes or mere risks that just didn't pan out? Had these risks or gambles panned out what would we say then? At what point do we consider a mistake a mistake? Would we call it good fortune or would we still consider it a mistake? Why do people always harp on their mistakes? Why don't we as a society allow people to forget or live down their mistakes?"
Whenever I raise these questions, I hear, "There you go again! You are so stubborn, you just don't like take talking to!" It is not a matter that one "does not like to take talking to" as we say here but rather that we should allow others to be themselves but rather that we allow others to learn for themselves, "a baby can not learn to walk without falling a few times. Can it?" We have all made mistakes. We will all make mistakes. We should realize that mistakes just like the successes and the so called 'right decisions' we make are all a part of life. Of course a little warning here and there is good but not to the point where we chastise one for the mistakes that he or she has made, not to the point where we define that person by his or her mistake. We should remind others that even though they make mistakes that that is not the end of the world, there is always tomorrow and tomorrow brings with it newness, a light, and the opportunity for change and the promise that one can rise above his or her mistake.
At lunch the other day Teslyn and I were just 'moseying' on down memory lane and rehashing those 'mistakes' that we think we have made over the years, especially those colleges years. We sat and we laughed at them. There were some, "So do you have regrets? Boy what was I thinking! I had to be seriously judgmentally impaired! Me Arm! How could I have been so stupid! Did I really do that! Why didn't you knock some sense into me! What would you have done differently?" and the beauty about the whole thing is that we realized that those things that we considered 'mistakes' happened for a reason and instead of keeping us broken, they somehow propelled us into the young women that we are today.
We realized that throughout all those ups and downs, throughout all those 'mistakes' we knew that at the end of the day instead of having someone who would rub our 'mistakes' in our faces or say the, 'I told you so'...there was someone who knelt down and cried with us, there was someone who dusted us off, helped us up when we were ready, laughed with us and never judged us and was off and running knowing that we are human and that we would make 'mistakes' again. We knew that there was someone who would say... "It is not the end of the world... and tell us that...
One of the greatest feelings in life is the conviction that you have lived the life you wanted to live-the rough and the smooth, the good and the bad-but yours, shaped by your own choices, and not someone else's' " Micheal Ignatieff
for anyone who has ever made a mistake
REMEMBER
LIFE GOES ON! Chin up! There's always tomorrow
