I’m always making mistakes. Today I published more evidence of it. This morning’s post Whose Reality is it Anyway? contained at least two more (that is, I found and corrected two, but with my record I’m not confident to say that there are not others lurking in the text).

I’ve put them right now, and of course I’ve vowed to myself to be more careful in future. I can move on…

But should I? Should I be allowed to make mistakes and get away with it? Isn’t a mistake a sign of personal failure, in this case a public one at that? I could make something of this. I could withdraw into my shell, stay safe, avoid doing things or taking risks. But I won’t. Why not?

Could be I have no professional pride, my standards are so low that I think mistakes don’t matter. Or maybe I’ve fooled myself into believing that the highly intelligent and insightful readers of this blog – in a moment of collective inattention – failed to spot my errors. But it’s neither of these things.

For some strange reason I am able to be as tolerant of my mistakes as I am of the mistakes of others. I put this down to a long history of failure. It started at school where I had it drummed into me, and since then life has continued to remind me that I often get it wrong. Only once did this nearly kill me, but there have been so many lesser examples they could add up to quite a profile of inadequacy.

Despite the evidence though I have failed to learn that I’m no good. Perhaps it is precisely because the taste of failure was made familiar to me at such a tender age, but whatever the reason there is something in me that drives me to remember and celebrate all the things I get right. Mostly these are small daily successes, with the occasional bigger one thrown in.

I am genuinely sorry for any typos that get published, I hope they don’t spoil your enjoyment of the blog. I’ll do my best to do better in future, but I won’t worry too much if I don’t. I hope you understand.

 

I’m a psychologist, coach, and therapist. All my work is aimed at enabling people to improve personal aspects of their lives and work.

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