Who would ever think that a mistake was a GEM? Well, guess what boys and girls....the mistakes we all make really are gems....Why, you ask Gommy? Because, Gommy answers, mistakes are gifts.....opportunities to reevaluate your approach to how you have been handling situations. Mistakes are lessons that we can learn from. Lessons that we all need to learn while we are acting out this 'play' called Life.
The biggest problem most people make is their unwillingness to 'accept' that they have done anything wrong. The other problem with making mistakes is that we sometimes continually beat ourselves up over the mistakes we made. Either scenario is moot. We have to remember that WHAT IS / IS.....It ain't gonna change....You have to put your big girl/boy panties on and deal with it. Then the rest of your life can change for the better. This is also when we can do as the wise adage says..."Be the change you want to see in the world." And Gommy's favorite...."It's Never Too Late to Live Happily Ever After."
There also is a statute of limitations on how long you can blame everyone or anyone i.e. mom, dad, upbringing, being poor, living in a bad neighborhood......The past is the past.....and the people who didn't make it into your 'now' didn't make it for a reason. There is no time for the blame game...either blaming yourself or anyone else. It happened....get over it and get on with it. But whatever you do, learn from it and it will not be for naught.....(that is old talk for "nothing").
You can take the opportunity, after you have made a mistake, to notice when you seem to be going down the 'same old path'....(because we are creatures of habit and we tend to take the easy way, most of the time).....But when you find that you are self-correcting a tendency to go the wrong way, you are actually building self-esteem and character. Character is that real stuff you can't buy in life. It is earned.....but can also be the easiest to lose when you keep doing the same stupid stuff. Einstein said that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome. The new definition is "duh"!!!!
Gommy has had sooooo many life mistakes in my life and the hardest part was digging down deep inside of myself and face what part was my own fault. Guess what part it was? ALL of it. We all have choices and when you decide on something, it is you making that choice. Be it either to be a grump-bucket, a pleasant person, a back-stabber, a nice co-worker, a good boss....any and all of those things are a choice we make as we go along. Goms admits that the reasons we make them aren't always clear to us though. Gommy didn't realize what a doofus I was until I started questioning the 'whys' of my life.
We all are a bit robotic when it comes to how we act and react to the stimuli in our lives. If we were complacent when we were little, we probably just let life happen to us.....if we were argumentative as children, we probably questioned everything that came up in our lives, if we had domineering or abusive parents or parents that didn't know how to show us that we were loved, we probably tried to make ourselves very 'small' and not take up very much room in our lives. The sad part is that it repeats itself... because it turns out to be generational. We are what we lived as we were growing up......our belief system is what we were told they were by our parents. Unless we wake up and examine why we did and what we did............. and why we may still be continuing to make the same mistakes over and over and over, they are going to keep happening.
Whatever the formative years presented to us, is how we usually act and react when we get older. But there is no law that says we can't take a look at things when we are more mature and try to figure out if - 'it' - (our way of doing things) is working for us or not any longer. If it isn't working.....get rid of it. That goes for our attitudes, our lifestyle, the people who we let into our lives....all of it. If it ain't broke...then as the saying goes, 'don't fix it'. But there is usually always something we can tweak in our lives to help us feel better. Another saying I like is...."Don't try to reinvent the wheel...just get a realignment once in a while." And we should always make sure we are acting and living the way that is comfortable for us and not to impress anyone else. If someone doesn't like you for who you are....pooh on them....(that is a technical term in psychology). Gommy has had a mantra for years that, "People only treat you the way you allow them to treat you." So if you don't like how someone is treating you......stop allowing it. And while you are at it.....look in the mirror because you may not be acting so wonderful yourself. We all pretty much get what we dish out. It is the old Karma is a Charma, Reap what you Sow, Spitting in the Wind and any other of those sayings, religious psalms and other philosophies that keep making sense because they hit the nail on the head.
Soooooo, boys and girls, think about some mistakes you have made in the past. Be totally honest and fess up to being a huge part of the hows and whys of them. Then......learn the lesson....even if it is years since it happened. It's never too late to learn. Be on the lookout for those blunders that may turn into further mistakes. But always see that mistakes can be 'building blocks instead of stumbling blocks." Good luck to all of us....we can do it.....Gommy is pulling for us. Hugs and Mush ((^.^))
