A Note On Irreparable Mistakes

Lately, and by that I mean since last night, I have been thinking about mistakes one could have made and if any of them are truly are irreparable. Been mulling over this for the better part of the day. I had nothing concrete so I decided to wing it, and just press publish when I thought I thought this post was complete

Short answer: there are no irreparable mistakes. 

Maybe I should just try and become a bit less vague. I am not going to discuss what prompted the inspiration for this post, suffice to say that maybe I did put my foot in my mouth, as I usually do, and I tried to make a point using a wrong choice of words. In response... well I got none to begin with so it might just be all in my head. :) 

First thing is first though. What do we mean when we say "that was a mistake"? Or even "that was an irreparable mistake"? As i was entertaining the whole notion of what a mistake actually is, i came to the realization (and again this might differ for everyone) that a mistake is something we do, that might be an action or things we said, that make us uncomfortable with the result of said action. Of course there are actions that might hurt the person they are directed to, but do they always count as mistakes? Hm, that might something to think about at another time. 

Back on topic; So, a mistake is something that makes us feel uncomfortable with something we did or said. It usually makes us uncomfortable because it is often something we perceive as being wrong. As a result we wouldn't want that same behaviour exhibited against us. 

So now you have an understanding of what, I consider, a mistake is. On to the "irreparable" part... (I love how the word actually just rrrrrols off your tongue). A mistake being something that made us feel uncomfortable in the first place, means we should first make it up to ourselves. Otherwise we wouldn't consider our action a mistake to begin with. We consider of ways to make it up to the person, we wronged in the first place. What we should be pondering, to begin with, should be something along these lines: "If I had said/done that to myself, how would I make myself better understand the reasons of why I did this, and how would I make it up to myself?"

Only by understanding the impact it had on the other person, and thus the effort required to amend for it, can we start making good with our conscience and therefore repairing the damage done. Of course, we might easily find ourselves dismissing or reducing the impact our action had on the other, thus lessening our personal responsibility. At that point it is up to the other to clarify how our actions affected them. 

This sounds more of a manual contrary to what was intended to. I guess what i am trying to say is this: If you make a mistake, that's cool, everyone does. If you think you can't make up for it, think again. You can fix it, but the other party should also be in the mood for forgiveness. The mood for forgiveness will eventually be there.. could be minutes, hours or even years. More time to think on how to actually make up for what you did :) 

And who knows? Maybe even by that time it might turn out that, what we thought we did or said that hurt or offended the other person, never actually offended them or hurt them. We would just have been uncomfortable if our actions were turned against us. 

Take a break. If this post was hard to follow just blame it on October (...instead of September as a friend said to me once).

Cheers

P.S. leaving you with a melancholic song... I really love it and I believe the clip equals its beauty. 

Bon Iver - Calgary