Learn from your mistakes, don’t brood over them!

It is perfectly fine to make a few mistakes in Life. So don’t ever waste time regretting or brooding over what’s happened. When you make a mistake, and you realize it, get up, dust yourself, look for the learning(s) from the experience, and move on!

Sreesanth : Not guilty until proven

India was shocked yesterday as news broke, yet again, of spot-fixing in cricket matches and a well-known player Sreesanth was arrested with a few others. It was also yesterday that Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt surrendered in court to complete his 42-month jail term for a crime he inadvertently committed in 1993. Both events, naturally, led to mixed reactions from people. Many were quick to write Sreesanth’s epithet and to conclude that Dutt perhaps deserved this. I would, however, humbly urge that we look at the learnings here rather than judge, criticize and opine.

Each of us, at some point or the other, has erred. Sometimes wantonly, sometimes knowingly, and at other times, simply, unknowingly. To not make mistakes is inhuman. What’s important__and intelligent__ however is to learn from mistakes and not repeat the same mistake twice. Clinging on to regrets in Life is a sure recipe for disaster. More disastrous, at times, than even the mistake and its repercussions!

To that extent there’s a big learning from Dutt’s surrender. People are free to argue that he was left with no other choice. But did he not display enormous courage and personal leadership while surrendering in the face of such intense public scrutiny? True courage is not really physical! Courage is always about facing the harsh realities in Life. It is all the more difficult to face them when those realities are an outcome of a mistake you have made. It surely takes great courage to stand up and say that “I messed up” and to “own the outcome” of one’s actions __ whatever they may be. That’s really what Dutt’s surrender teaches us.

Let’s stop thinking of Life as having to be clinically perfect. We are not robots. We will make mistakes. And it’s fine. No matter what we do. What is crucial is to learn from our actions, our decisions and their outcomes. And the learning will be complete and the awakening brilliant when we don’t grieve and regret over what we have done. Another principle worth following is, since none of us is perfect, and we have all made mistakes, it is best not to opine, not to judge when we see others having to pay for their mistakes. It is a simple courtesy we can extend to fellow human beings who are going through their own learning curves in Life!

Simply, to make a mistake is not a terrible thing to happen in Life. To brood over it definitely is!