NOBODY’S PERFECT

“Life isn’t meant to be lived perfectly…but merely to be LIVED. Boldly, wildly, beautifully, uncertainly, imperfectly, magically LIVED.” ― Mandy Hale, The Single Woman: Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass

One of the life philosophies that I live by is “live and learn.” This particular philosophy is based on my own belief that you have to live life to the fullest, and to do that means you will make mistakes.

I want to have life experiences. That means that I will make mistakes. I will learn from those mistakes and move on. I have made some pretty stupid mistakes that had some unhappy consequences. But you know, I am better for it. I lived through the consequences and vowed to never make the same mistake again.

Mistakes are a part of living life. Learning from your mistakes is some of the best education you can get. If you don’t live a little you can’t learn a lot. If you don’t have experiences in life then what good is living?

“A person who makes few mistakes makes little progress.”― Bryant McGill

I have known people who are so afraid that they will make a wrong decision or choice or make a life-altering mistake that they just exist and don’t really live. That makes for a sad, limited life.

One of the things people often are afraid of is to spend money on anything that is not a necessity. They are so afraid that if they spend money on fun, all of a sudden they will be financially destitute. It’s kind of sad. I don’t think that a vacation every now and then would leave them broke and homeless, but they are afraid.

If you are a parent, I know that you are like every other parent and don’t want your kids to do anything that would cause negative consequences to happen to them. Somehow we assigned the role of plastic bubble to ourselves. That’s a metaphor for us as parents always trying to keep our children from getting exposed to things that might hurt them.

“Wisdom comes from making mistakes, having the courage to face them, and make adjustments moving forward based upon the knowledge acquired through those experiences.” ― Ken Poirot

I don’t necessarily only mean physical harm either. Of course, we don’t want our kids to get hurt physically, but I am really talking about other types of hurt. Hurt that may come from a break up with their romantic partner or from failing out of school.

Those are things that hurt, but if you don’t let your kids go through these things and face the consequences of their actions, they will never learn. We try to teach them what we learned from our own mistakes to minimize their hurt, but really we just need to let them learn it for themselves. They can’t live their life in fear of imperfections of life, or they might as well just lock all their doors and never go anywhere or do anything.

“The only people who don’t make any mistakes are those who don’t do anything.” ― Kelvin Wong

I’m not advocating that we don’t teach our children right from wrong or don’t teach them the right way to handle things so that we diminish the possibility of life-altering mistakes. But you can’t keep your children so sheltered that they have no life skills to fall back on when they get out in the world. You can’t be so afraid of your children suffering negative consequences that you don’t teach them accountability for their own behavior.

If they do make a mistake and something bad happens, then you can be there for them to support them emotionally until they feel better again. You can and should teach them to forgive themselves for the mistakes they make. This is valuable for a happy life.

Even if you are doing everything you can to keep your life perfect, unexpected things are going to happen. How will you cope if you have never learned coping skills? Continuing to push to keep up the appearances of your perfect life when something imperfect happens can lead you down a path of some pretty bad choices. If you had allowed yourself to live a little and see what happens when you make a mistake, then the path of bad choices might not present itself to you.

“It is important that we forgive ourselves for making mistakes. We need to learn from our errors and move on.” ― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

You also have to forgive yourself for the mistakes you make. People who dwell on their own mistakes and imperfections without forgiving themselves along the way will turn out to be unhappy and unforgiving of others’ mistakes and imperfections. That attitude can lead to divorce, loss of friends, and potentially loss of jobs.

If you don’t live life to the fullest, you may avoid some negative consequences but you also won’t reap any rewards. Your life experiences will be limited to only what you deem to be safe. That’s really no way to live either.

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” ― Albert Einstein

You must take chances and risks and have fun in life in order to progress and grow and learn. You learn what works and what doesn’t. You learn that some consequences are not nearly as bad as the boogeyman your mind made them out to be.

So get out there and live a little!

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