You Were Meant To Make The Mistakes You’ve Made, And You’ll Continue To Make More

I like mistakes. I make them often too. But ever since I was a tiny human, I’ve always accepted my mistakes. I would get frustrated when my Barbie doll’s hair would get tangled up, but then I’d understand that putting my Barbie in the washing machine does not make her shiny. It just tangles her hair up and wipes her face off. I made a mistake and I learned something. That’s why I like making mistakes.

Oxford defines a mistake as an act or judgment that is misguided or wrong. Society however decided that regret belongs somewhere in that definition and that’s where they’re wrong. I will never regret a mistake I make. For all I know, it was the best decision I could have made at the time being given the resources I had. I sometimes even avoid the term mistake because of people stringing it to regret. But here’s my theory: mistakes are merely things that had to happen to get you to the place you belong.

Let me explain, people are made of their mistakes, or should I say, people are a result of their mistakes. When you don’t make mistakes, everything goes well and you’d be happy that everything is going well, but would you stop and look back at what you’re doing right? You won’t. It’s very hard to know what you’re doing right. However, it’s very easy to see what you’re doing wrong, or what you did wrong. Edison failed 1000 times to create the light bulb. With every failure, he learned something; what not to do. The only way he knew how to invent a light bulb was by knowing 1000 ways how not to. Without his mistakes, he would not know.

When you make a mistake, an automatic response is triggered in your brain that searches for what went wrong. And you know. You know what not to say, what not to do. You learn more. And if you think about it, a lot of what you know today, you learnt from mistakes. A lot of who you are today is a result of the mistakes you made. Embrace that.

In a twisted but rather beautiful way, you were meant to make these mistakes. And you’re meant to make some more. Because if you didn’t make mistakes, you wouldn’t know.

Just like, if you didn’t cut bangs, you wouldn’t know that you look better without them. If you didn’t burn your last batch of cookies, you wouldn’t know that setting the oven to a higher temperature does not substitute for pre heating. If you didn’t let people step over you time and time again, you wouldn’t know that you should always trust your instincts when they tell you something is not right. If you didn’t ruin a painting by trying to improve it so much, you wouldn’t know that paintings are done when they’re almost perfect, not beyond that. If you didn’t make your mistakes, you wouldn’t know what you know today.

You are who you are today because of all the mistakes you made, all the lessons you learned, all the things you know. And if you hadn’t made these mistakes, you would not be yourself. You were meant to make these mistakes so you’d get here. And you’re meant to make more mistakes so you’d get to where you should and where you wouldn’t if you didn’t make them.

There’s a plan up there for you that you’re unknowingly following, so there’s no room for regret in life. There’s no point in it. Mistakes are just chances for improvement. Call it growth, call it development, call it evolution. Call it whatever you’d like to call it, but never regret it. Try to understand it, analyze it. Work with it because it’s part of who you are and if you don’t make it a good part then you need a paradigm shift.

Mistakes are good. I’ve loved every mistake I’ve made so far because of the person I’m made into today. I am a person I look up to because of what I’ve done. And honestly, I can’t wait to make more mistakes…