Advice you won’t want to take
I’ve dedicated a good deal of space on this blog over the years to offering advice. Advice, after all, is kind of the bread and butter of blogging. Advice and navel gazing; the stuff that blogs are made of.
If you’ve got the time, I’d even encourage you to dig through the archives, though I cringe thinking about some of the stuff I wrote in the early years. I’m sure some of it was good though. Probably.
It’s kind of funny then that even when the advice is sound, sometimes it is better not to listen to it. Sometimes, you need to make mistakes for yourself in order to learn anything. They can be hard lessons to learn, especially if it means losing out on a job, or embarrassing yourself, or hurting someone’s feelings. We’ve all been there, even if some of us won’t or can’t admit it.
Which makes me wonder about people who can’t admit their mistakes. Life must be so much harder when you can never be wrong. When you are never wrong your relationships suffer at work, at home, and in the community. Life becomes a battle; You against the world. There is no such thing as constructive criticism or compromise. People who are never wrong are incredibly unpleasant to be around. I’ve seen too many people escorted out of offices with a box of their belongings who could have avoided all the drama with a little bit of self reflection.
It’s only when we take ownership of our mistakes that we become both vulnerable and strong. We become more honest and relatable. We are more compassionate and empathetic. We learn to forgive because we want to be forgiven in turn. Others will go out of their way to help someone who is able and willing to admit that they need help. The world becomes a better place when we accept that we are all just human.
Unfortunately, anyone who could learn something from this blog post probably wouldn’t be able to internalize it anyway. That’s ok. I didn’t write this for them. I wrote this as a reminder that the next time you are sad and ready to beat yourself up over a mistake, there are a lot worse things than being wrong. Forgive yourself, ask for help, and move on with your life. You’ll be just fine.
