On the morning of December 4, 2024, part of my journal entry looked like this:
Last night: I found myself standing on my bed in the middle of the night, mistaking it for a floor. I took a step forward, expecting a hard surface – only to step off the edge; I caught myself just before I fell, then simply sat down, rolled over, and…I don’t know what came next. To this moment I still couldn’t decide whether that actually happened, or if it was part of an ongoing a dream. I was calm throughout, although my body jolted once from the surprise of emptiness beneath my weight. I knew I had dreams last night, but I’m pretty sure my knees felt a little shaken when I actually woke (at 4:30am). Whatever that was, I’ve already made four-five mistakes in my “professional” or people-facing things within one hour since getting online, mostly those things that revolve around reading, details, and communication. Nothing serious or irreversible, but each one of them were painfully incompetent and thoroughly unnecessary mistakes. That’s more mistakes in 60 minutes than I usually make in a month. I’m not sure what’s going on.
All that to say, mistakes often hurt. Sometimes we might wish we never make them.
But would that actually be as amazing as we’d like to think?
If you would, I welcome you to explore this concept of accidental imperfection or inaccuracy with me in the following vaguely-connected vignettes — and on this guy’s blog post on the same topic. (Yes, the same-day posting is intentional. 😉 )
***
There is a Chinese proverb that says, it is better to ask a question and be thought a fool for a few minutes than to not ask and stay a fool for a lifetime.
I think we could replace “asking questions” with “making mistakes” for most things in life.
When we do something and the results are not what we expected them to be — for myriad reasons, but especially when it is us who have failed ourselves by committing “a wrong action or statement proceeding from faulty judgement, inadequate knowledge, or inattention” (otherwise known as a “mistake“) — we may feel embarrassed or even ashamed of ourselves. “I knew better than that,” we scold ourselves afterwards. The reactions, facial expressions, and comments from others around us may make us feel like fools for not having been perfectly right, for not having been impressive, for not having been the flawless human being we are so painfully aware we are not and yet demand each other to be.
So we hold back from making mistakes to not fail others, to not fail ourselves. (Or, if we happen to possess just the right amounts of gab, annoyance, and wit mixed into a nauseating personality, we turn into those friends who always refuse to be wrong.)
But the only way to not make any mistakes is to not attempt anything.
In essence, we avoid temporary discomfort and embarrassment (and whatever loss or danger you may incur, if you act) by paying the costs of bondage and inaction.
Bondage, because freedom is taking care of yourself and being responsible for your own life regardless of risk. Bondage, because you have chosen ignorance of a broader reality over engaging with it. Bondage, because you made the decision out of fear and now live under it.
The costs of inaction lie in what those mistake-avoiding excuses steal from you — the integrity of living in accordance with reality, with a stronger mind, a more resilient body, a kinder soul, and all things such may lead to — and more.
In completely avoiding the possibility of failing yourself and others by becoming an NPC in your own life, you automatically become one — which is the biggest mistake of all.
***
A toddler from Novosibirsk plays the drums with skill, enthusiasm, and concentration. Watch the performance — it made me smile and took my breath. He is a force to be reckoned with.
But in the middle of an impressive riff, he drops a drumstick. It falls where he has to struggle to pick it back up.
Does he throw a temper tantrum? Burst into tears? Quit on the spot? Try to hobble along on the instrument with one stick?
No. The comments below the video tell you what made this video truly worth watching:
- This little chap could drop a stick, scratch his nose, have a conversation, admire the architecture, and never miss a beat. Wow!
- Dropping that stick and his recovery was simply the most astonishing part of this. truly very very talented
- I was most impressed with how smoothly he recovered from dropping and not being able to locate the dropped stick. That takes a calm resolve many adults don’t have, much less a five year old.
- Even has time to scratch his nose… and not impressed at all by losing one of his sticks, he just continues like nothing had happened (many adults struggle); moreover he’s barely twice the size of them… 😉 Really adorable and awesome! 👍
Of course, the way he skipped his way across the stage towards the drums like he is about to greet a long-lost lover, or his smirks at the orchestra members as he ran off on his solo, or the yell at the last few beats all captured the hearts of his audience.
However, it is the mistake that made this performance more memorable than “Wow, another young prodigy!” If the performance had been perfect, it’d had been just any other superb drum playing — nothing to particularly remember or be amazed at, other than the unusual age of the musician.
That is one half of the story, however — the other half is how he recovered from it.
What if the little boy did not come back into the piece on beat, or in the right measure? What if his technique was sloppy as he slowly regained confidence after the unintended break in music? What if he was mentally and psychologically shaken enough to forget what his part of the piece was?
To me, the power of this little guy’s recovery after such a disastrous mistake is his presence of mind coupled with his skill on the drums — two things that came together to make the mistake not only part of the performance, but the one part of the performance that was most worth remembering and respecting.
What if we develop into people who recover from mistakes at this level, instead of working hard to avoid or minimize mistakes altogether?
***
Without the possibility of mistakes, what would we treasure? What could we?
Gone would be the satisfaction of getting things right, the joy of completing what you’ve set out to do in the way it was supposed to go, the quiet pride of mastery when pressure meets skill and that something is performed correctly.
Gone would be the conflicts and arguments that strengthen relationships, the missteps that lead to unexpected adventures, the accidents that make stories memorable and meaningful.
Gone also would be growth and learning, much resilience and perseverance, and respect towards professions, craft, and each other.
Those are only some of the costs of removing mistakes from the realm of possibility.
Do you want that?
***
This post may read like an essay glorifying mistakes; but that is not my intention.
Some mistakes should never be made. Some no one could ever afford to make. Some that many of us would give everything to undo, if only that were possible.
You and I have read those stories — the father who comes home from work and while backing into his driveway, forgets to check all his blind-spots and kills his young son who was running out the door to greet him. The surgeon who, with hands trembling with fatigue and stress, acts upon an incorrect diagnosis or makes an imprecise incision; the patient’s life is cut short. The judge in a courtroom, caught between two equally convincing and well-supported arguments from both sides, sends an innocent person to a life behind bars or death.
In these situations, how far, how strongly, onto whom would you push the blame? They too are only human, making mistakes just as you’ve made your share of mistakes in the past, have done so today, and will continue to make.
There are different sorts of mistakes and of consequences, different levels of seriousness and irretreivability, different definitions and nuances to each mistake. We learn skills, we master movements, we educate ourselves, we run processes and systems over and over and over again to reduce the probability of mistakes occurring — but we can never wipe out the possibility altogether.
It still hovers over us in every facet of life, sometimes deadly and threatening, sometimes simply a reminder that we’re not all-knowing and all-powerful.
We all need that reminder sometimes, do we not?
***
Here our wander through the idea of “mistakes” pauses, but the question still lingers: Is it better to never make mistakes, or to risk making them by acting?