Mistakes

By Dr. Marlo Archer

I was a teenager in the late ‘80’s, already disillusioned and cynical, when Successories’ motivational posters began papering the walls of corporate and educational settings. A single, striking, vividly-colored photograph took up 95% of the poster space, under which would stand an inspirational word like, “COURAGE,” “INTEGRITY,” or “HOPE,” followed by a thought-provoking elaboration of the notion like: “When the sun rises, it rises for everyone.” 

Like others my age and ilk, I was immediately repulsed by the seemingly pollyanna view these posters were trying to convey and was so overjoyed and delighted when Despair, Inc. began their parody of those happy-crappy abominations that were continually trying to remind me of how much better I could be if I would just believe or try.

Despair, Inc. came out with outstanding look-alike offerings like: MEETINGS — None of us is as dumb as all of us; or AMBITION — Sometimes the journey of a thousand miles ends very, very badly — this one featuring a gorgeous, high-quality photo of a spawning salmon leaping upstream into the mouth of a waiting brown bear.

However, the one that caught my attention and still sometimes holds my heart hostage was MISTAKES. A glorious red-orange-yellow sunset over a still, azure ocean allows one to briefly mis-perceive the dark silhouette rising out of the ocean as a grateful Beluga’s waved goodbye to the sailors who freed her from carelessly discarded fishing nets. However, in just a moment, it becomes clear that the pointy end of what protrudes from the ocean is not a pectoral fin, but rather, the bow of a hopelessly sinking ship.

In smaller type, the thought left for you to ponder is as follows: It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others. 

I instantly invested the majority of my next paycheck with Despair, Inc., and adorned everything I could with my logo and motto. This served me in so many ways ranging from making me look, to my educators, like I had bought into the positive motivational trend; to giving me something to stare at while being reprimanded to remind myself that even now I was serving a special purpose — warning others not to get caught doing what I’d done; and as a source of protection when a meaner cynic would begin to badger me for the tiny motivational pin on my Member’s Only jacket, only to stop themselves, laugh, and move on without harassing me further when they actually read what it said.

“Every 12-Step program offers a simple, but not easy solution to just about any mistake you can make. You don’t even have to be an alcoholic or addict to use the mistake-fixing magic.”

As you can guess, I continued to make mistakes throughout my teenage years and well into my early twenties. And late twenties. And actually early 30’s if I’m being honest. Oh heck, who am I trying to fool? I polluted my 40’s with mistakes and am nearly through my 50’s with rarely a mistake-free day to my name, in fact, a mistake I made this morning inspired the topic of this article. What’s different today, that wasn’t present in my earlier years, is that today I know how to fix most mistakes and that the embarrassment of having made a mistake is not fatal.

Every 12-Step program offers a simple, but not easy solution to just about any mistake you can make. You don’t even have to be an alcoholic or addict to use the mistake-fixing magic. If you honestly take a look at any harm you have done to someone else and make a sincere and compassionate effort to make amends to them, it really fixes just about any mistake you can make, especially the “stupid” ones.

What you have to do first, though, to allow yourself to approach the situation is to understand fully and completely that embarrassment is not fatal and that it is not worse than just leaving what might be a slight insult to someone else get swept under a rug by you both. Those tiny injuries, ignored year after year are the things of which divorces, family cut-offs, and unjustified firings are made If you cannot allow yourself to believe that embarrassment is temporary, bearable, and largely up to you to dismiss by making amends, please use my life as both a warning and an example. If you have not already seen me make a mistake, you just don’t know me well enough yet. Introduce yourself, you’ll see one before long. I believe you could ask most of the advertisers, half of the columnists, and the very publisher of this newspaper for examples of mistakes they’ve seen me make over the years.

Mistakes, even small ones, left uncorrected, definitely sink ships. However, a ship’s bow reinforced with multiple mended breaches may be even stronger than when it first set sail.

Learn more at http://www.drmarlo.com