I made a bit of a blunder last week. An oversight that was understandable and yet unfortunate. I mean, I didn’t get up in the morning, sprinkle sugar on my weeties and think…
“How can I be a monster today. What heinous act can I accomplish to wreak mayhem and mischief in peoples lives” No, just a little oopsie that anyone could make. I dutifully apologised, was swiftly forgiven and the whole thing was forgotten. Or was it?
You see the thing that disconcerted me most was not the fact that I made the blunder. When you get grey hair and wrinkles your mind also gets a little squidgy around the edges.
No, what I spent too much energy on was navel gazing whilst repeating the formula “Could have should have”. This is not a helpful way to expend the valuable and limited resources of human emotion. A more fruitful exercise would be to put some strategies in place to try to make sure that this mistake does not recur. Surely that is a much more positive use of time.
But there is also a much more sinister thing that happens. That we swiftly cast our “Could have / should have” onto someone else and there it sticks. We can only see them through the murk of past errors. And what is sadder, is that by audibly articulating this mantra, others also are sucked into our slurry.
“Ol so and so should have done…A, B, C. They should not have done Q. # Z, X and that other unmentionable thing. Everyone from our pollies to our sporting heroes are fair game. No-one is exempt.
Each day we need to see ourselves afresh because that is how the Master sees us. The challenge is to see others that way too.