Growing up, there were a lot of teachers who tried to encourage students to do what they can. “Don’t be afraid to make mistakes,” they would say. This sentiment is often found in a lot of motivational quotes as well. These quotes can be found from inspirational speakers, journals meant to help people cope with stress, and even tutorials in video games. It was meant to help push people to at least make the effort. You can’t move forward if you let your fear of making a mistake hold you back.
I unfortunately took the idea to heart to an extreme. I make mistakes and take forever to learn from them frequently now.
When I was younger, I made a lot of mistakes. I had a hard time learning from my mistakes though and my mother used to always say to me, “You listen from one ear and it goes out the other.” She said that out of frustration because this was a problem I faced with a lot. Eventually I’d finally learn from the mistake and move on from there.
The problem is that I still do this. In fact, it’s probably even worse now than it was back then. Instead of facing the mistakes and failures I’ve made, I would brush them off as an isolated incident. I disregard the effort needed to actually move on from the mistake and learn from it.
None of this was something I was concerned about until recent years. It all came to a breaking point recently when my friend had to have a long talk with me about it. I constantly made mistakes that undermined the friendship we made and took advantage of the kindness they showed. The mistakes themselves were not what caused friction in our friendship. It was me not learning from my mistakes and repeating them.
It’s embarrassing to admit that I have this problem. Even moreso embarrassing that it’s still happening despite being 30 years old now. I am even seeing this being a problem at work where I’m not internalizing the criticism I’ve received regarding my work.
I can’t treat mistakes and shortcomings as one-offs anymore. I can’t keep treating failures as small things. I can’t live like this anymore. If I want to actually make something out of myself, I need to tackle these mistakes I made head on with earnest conviction.
I write this as a way to denounce the failures I shrugged off. I write this as a cry against the person I was. I write this as a way to keep myself accountable.
I detest being this way and my god, I do not want this feeling to come back ever again.
For this week’s image, I finally took pictures of one of my nendoroids. The character’s name is Exusiai from a mobile game called Arknights! I was excited when her nendoroid was released because I really liked her design. When I got to read more about her personality in the game, I found myself relating to her character more than I thought I would.
I tried to portray her angelic side when doing some more in depth editing, but I’m not sure I was able to do that very well. Hopefully in the future, I’ll have a better concept in mind! Or a better picture to help highlight my week. Either way, hope you enjoy!
“I detest being this way” — there’s a lot of depth to this quote and the implication that you want to change this is promising.
“. . . being this way”
To “be” something typically tends to carry with it a connotation of rigidity; once something “is” a certain way, it is a characteristic of the object itself. An airplane is a machine. A house is a structure. They were created as such, and thus they are.
And yet, a house can also be a home. An airplane can be vessel. Although their inherent properties are still intact, they can become more based on the nature in which they are used.
Humans also carry this capacity, and in fact have even more potential due to their sentience. With sentience however also comes the ability to choose. One can choose to be the way they “are” or choose to move past their established habits to become something more.
A human with ADHD is only a human with ADHD if they are attaining or seeking treatment. However, a human who consciously forgoes treatment is no longer a human with ADHD — they have internalized any deficiencies resulting from such as a part of their being. Micro-differences and micro-deficiencies are what make people different and have different talents. There is nothing wrong with internalizing quirks, even sometimes big ones, as a part of how one “is”.
However, beware the perception that comes from those on the receiving end. A human who makes a mistake and tries to learn from it is a human who made a mistake. A human who makes a mistake and brushes it off as a one-off occurrence without learning from it?
That is an unreliable human.