Mistakes make us human

The biggest crime is constantly kicking oneself without any mercy. Mind and your feelings are the fragrance of the lord. A good friend keeps you away from kicking yourself and gives you the shelter of joy.

When one makes mistakes what should one do?

Firstly, stop beating yourself up. Learn from your mistakes. Mistakes are okay but don’t repeat the mistake. Mistakes make us human. Grow from the mistakes, become wiser and see what has not worked. Knowing what has not worked will help you to go in the right direction. Beating yourself up is an act of inner drunkenness. Keep a learning energy around the mistake you have made and not a guilty energy around it. Don’t keep yourself in a torture chamber of guilt.

What is the first mistake we make in life?

As someone said, “We are like a ship in the ocean without a compass.” We don’t have a vision. Not having a clear-cut vision of life is the first mistake.

The second mistake we make is we worry when our goals are not met. Third, we curse ourselves for the mistakes we make rather than make them ladders of understanding.

The fourth is not to keep right company. Lastly, work on your life as a whole and do not get lost in one aspect.

Mind is our friend and mind is our enemy, says the Bhagavad Gita. A mind which generalises is a mind which is harsh on oneself, is it not? We generalise that all men are dominating, all women are flirts, and all religious leaders are exploiters. By such generalisations we miss seeing the beauty of things .

The second form of kicking ourselves is that we get focused on what is missing. There are infinite things we have and infinite things we don’t have and always seeing things we don’t have is making our lives miserable. We think in black and white. This is right and that is wrong and hence we don’t see shades of gray. This absolutisation is another form of beating.

An adamant atheist spent his whole life spreading his message that god is a fiction of man’s hopes. He fell sick and was on his death bed. He wanted a priest to come. The priest was shocked at his request. When the priest asked him the reason for changing his mind to become a theist, he said, “When I die I should feel happy that a theist has failed to convert me even at the time of my death”.