Day 32 Mistakes, I've made a few....

Sometimes I feel my whole life is wrapped up in the lyrics to a song!

I make mistakes every dat. From the irritating - like making coffee when I really wanted something herbal, to the profound - like not properly remembering someone's name, and coming out with the wrong one.
All this has got much worse as I get older, and it is so annoying! I talked with my adult daughter about this recently, and we both agreed everyone makes mistakes their whole life through. At work (shop) when I was 16 I remember playing on the till in a quiet patch, and accidentally hitting OK when £9,999,999.99 was on the register! Did I get flack for that!
For most of my career I worked in a profession that had at its core complete accuracy. I had a boss who would spot a spelling mistake at 2000 miles. I hated being judged for a simple typo so I started deliberately putting the odd one into my work to give him something to spot. (There's one in this post too).
For me its about being judged, isn't it! It's just so easy for people to spot a mistake and damn your whole life for it. Its in our culture. Its all about ego. "I am better than you because I can see you can't spell indefatigable" (quick spell check to make sure!).
Up until now I might have curled up - criticism again! - but I think from now on I might just say to myself - "there you go again! Make more mistakes! Allow that error of judgment. The house won't fall down. Life's more interesting when its not all indexed, colour co-ordinated and precision engineered."
I think I might also start noticing when things go well - not a mistake in sight. After all that is about 90% of the time!

 

Yip, I can certainly relate to this. I worked in the Research Division of a large company. I accidentally sent an email switching affect and effect. Well, the world almost came to an end. Take a look at my Day 12. You will be able to relate.

I, too, am going to start including boo boos. Oh gosh is that a big step. Like you I would have to point it out so everyone would know I am still perfect because I did it on purpose. I just don't think I could intentionally leave an error. I wouldn't be able to sleep. Boy does this have a strangle hold .

 

What a wonderful reply! You are so funny! I hope you meant to be funny......
Can we be perfect together from now on, and make all the mistakes we do and not check?
If putting out your gold-plated signed and dated harvested from the winter forests of Scandanavia hand picked bat is too hard to put out with the trash, perhaps you could go down a model or two, and beat yourself up with a blade of grass. I intend to join you.
(Oh NO....I'm proof-reading 4 lines!)

 

Me funny... look at you! I really like the "idea" of using a blade of grass. I know, I know I "shouldn't" be using anything at all. But what about just a little tap now and then.

I went out to lunch. I was reflecting on my baseball bat story. Then remembered I forgot to put Day 12. I had to rush home to see what I did. I have done this before and I did it again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my gosh, please don't tell me I am human. Humans aren't perfect and I'm supposed to be. Now I have to use my foot to kick myself in the butt since the trash person took my gold-plated signed and dated harvested from the winter forests of Scandinavia bat (Maybe I should have sold it on Craigslist-Used but works very well).

 

Right now I am feeling very anxious. I still can't forget that I made the "Day 12" mistake. My heart is pounding in my chest, my stomach is doing flip-flops, my breath is shallow, my hands are shaking,... can you believe this? I guess before it would just come out as physical pain but now I am so aware of it.

 

SandyRae:

I can relate. I remember sending important e-mail messages to our company VP's and checking and rechecking it 10 times. I don't do that anymore and I send much less e-mail and schedule in person meetings. For me this was an inferiority thing which caused so much built up anger over the years. Of course this stemmed from my childhood, poor, broken home etc. Oh the shame.

I am much gentler on myself now. I keep reminding myself that the nervous system takes a while to settle down and my negative thoughts will take a while to reverse.

p.s. I can get away with spelling errors, I am an engineer.

Keep healing and posting!
Susan

 

SandyRae - what is going to happen as a result of you making that mistake about Day 12? Someone might not find your post? Loads of people don't flag up their messages with the proper heading! Think of it as a good way to train newcomers to finding their way around the posts! Think about how you would have felt if you had deliberately not put the right heading? oh my gosh. Chaos. Just be one of the gang!
Explorer - I love your idea of immediately being kind and gentle to yourself. I think from now on, as soon as I spot my tendency to want to correct a mistake or worry about its consequenses, I will thank myself for my caring attention, and then have a little giggle at how silly this tendency is!

 

As the site suggests I told my husband about my mistake of Day 12 and how anxious it made me feel. He said I can tell you now we are going to put the house for sale and move out of the neighborhood. The dog won't come to you any more. The birds left the bird feeder. Your friends will all stop calling. We laughed and laughed.

 

Oh my, I reread everything ten times. Thanks for all the humor everyone. By the way , you can edit your posts, though perhaps this will feed our perfectionism?