Sometimes you win sometimes you learn. I love this saying. It says if you lose there is a purpose to it. Easy to say, hard to do.
I am not the best at being wrong. For many years I blamed, deflected, argued. I see it today on social media too.
I see a lot of “Well they said this. They did that.” Folks we have a whole lot of “I’m right, you are wrong.” We don’t seem to have much humility, grace or ability to say “You may be right.”
I see outrage that a political candidate could be bought by these people. And I am shocked that no one can see their particular political party or candidate has done the same at some point. What I see sitting in the middle is no grace.
I got onto social media before coffee. Major error. I posted a story and gave it a headline without thinking much. Someone thankfully commented what was wrong but had an accusation tied to it. That I was misleading the public.
I laughed because it was an error, well several errors. The most important being I should not post before coffee.
It made me think about how I handle being wrong. Growing up being wrong meant I was no good. There was a lot of “HOW COULD YOU?!” There was no grace, no lesson, just a reminder I wasn’t good enough.
I am better than I was but not as good as I could be. Being wrong is hard.
When I send the paper out to print each week, I have a few moments of that was a pretty good job. Lots of information and I worked hard.
Then comes the constructive criticism. I failed. I forgot something or I wrote that a football game was away instead of home. I can feel defeated, What’s the point of doing this job if I am putting out inaccurate info?
Years of wisdom and therapy say we all make mistakes. We all fail.
So how do you handle criticism and being wrong?
What I did was wrong but that doesn’t discount the good that I do. It doesn’t make me less of a person. It just means I wasn’t right that time.
We all get it wrong. We all fail. How do we treat ourselves after? Are we teaching our kids how to lose?
In our first year of showing sheep, we had a half sheared sheep and my daughter came in dead last. She lost with more grace than I have ever displayed in my life. A friend helped shear the sheep between divisions and she came back not last. I saw the judge give her fourth instead of last because of her attitude, to encourage her.
I am not proud of my mistakes but I am proud that I have grown a little. Isn’t that the point of life?
We can’t learn anything without making mistakes.
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