Thursday 25 December 2014

ACCEPTING AND LEARNING FROM YOUR MISTAKES

As the year comes to an end, are you ready to honestly assess your failures amidst your successes and achievements? Many people are ego driven and just defend themselves to defer attention away from themselves and downplay the seriousness of a situation, or to deny fault. Admitting where, why, and how an error occurred gives each one of us the opportunity to correct it, and to concentrate on avoiding similar errors in future.

A leader of one small country visited the prison which had 200 prisoners. He sat with each inmate wanting to know what they had done, but one after the other they all gave excuses about how they were set up and how innocent they were.
However, the last inmate told the leader that he was jailed because he had a fight with his best friend, whom he hit, killing him instantly. He expressed how remorseful he was and how he regretted everything, and narrated how they had been good friends since childhood.
The leader asked the guards to release the last prisoner. “Well”, he said, “It seems all the other 199 inmates did not commit any mistake. Release the inmate who has admitted to his mistakes; let him go out and leave with other people who have mistakes. As for those who have committed no mistakes, let them remain together in prison with their perfect lives”.
Constant refusal to face up to being wrong can take a toll on one’s reputation, relationship, work and life. Embrace humility, recognize failures and acknowledge them.

Alexander Pope, said “No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that they are wiser today than they were yesterday”.