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It's OK to make mistakes

·2 mins
Kindness
Vivid green first spring grass. In the centre is a bright red ladybird, flanked by two white daisies.
Spring is here

The world is extremely wide

and it has a lot to offer.

That’s why the first steps.

are almost always unsuccessful.

Helpless first poems are the first.

Unhappy first love.

There are no accomplishments,

but only impulses.

And then years pass,

and a restrained strength emerges.

You look back and the first steps

have long since been covered with dust.

You feel both funny and angry,

and you often forget:

In order to walk well,

you have to fall down ten times.

  • Lina Kostenko; About the path

We all make mistakes. It can be too easy when we do to say “I’m stupid for this”.

But how many things did you know how to do when you were born?

You couldn’t walk; you had to learn by trying, failing, falling; making mistakes. Eventually you learned, and you forgot all the times you fell. Now you think nothing of walking, take it for granted, rarely trip.

You couldn’t even feed yourself; your care-giver did that for you, too. First with liquid, then with mush. You got it all over your face. Eventually you learned how to feed yourself and keep it in your mouth. Mostly, anyway.

And likewise with reading and writing, even speaking. Hours and hours spent trying to learn what is the difference between a ‘c’ and an ’e’. Sounds that you could not even pronounce until you were older. Those words that our parents delight in telling us how we used to say them as a toddler.

There’s no reason this should change as we turn into adults. We don’t become static people when we reach adulthood. Making mistakes when something is new does not indicate stupidity or any other negative quality. It shows we are growing as people.

Show me a person who never made a mistake and I’ll show you one who never learned something new.

Of course, I’m not talking about mistakes caused by incompetence or arrogance here. We’ve all met people who cause problems precisely because they are not trying to learn. People who really should recognise that their ability level is not close to where it needs to be for a certain role.

But the rest of us? Who are just trying to be better in the world? Trying to be the best person we can be, but are faltering along the way? Maybe we can afford to be a bit more generous with ourselves, and the people around us who are trying, too.

It’s OK to make mistakes.