People Make Mistakes

“Making mistakes is better than faking perfection.” -Unknown

As someone who has spent her entire life trying to meet unrealistic expectations, I have overthought, over analyzed and become more than paralyzed over trying to be perfect. It’s crippling often times.  But the truth is, no matter how many times you go over something, when the grand moment finally arrives, mistakes will happen. The worst part is that those blunders are the ones you never saw coming; the situations you were absolutely sure you had totally together.

I’ve often noticed many political figures tear their careers apart by lying when someone calls them out on something only to be caught in the end. It’s a sad situation for a few reasons. Often times they are the ones to blame because they had touted themselves to be completely infallible. When you claim to be perfect and above everyone else, you had better be able to prove it time and time again.

But at the same time, I also wish there was more of a culture to allow for failure when someone admits to an honest mistake. We force ourselves into a corner when we don’t accept that we are fallible. I’ve taken the fall for probably too many situations in my time. But there have been plenty of times where I truly was at fault and took my blame as appropriate.

I’ve always admired the quote by Vince Lombardi,

                     “Gentlemen, we are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because nothing is perfect. But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process we will catch excellence.”

If we’re trying to get to excellence, giving it every effort we’ve got, let’s try to forgive a bit more when we don’t make it. It’ll be a happier world for us all.