Last night, I was watching a horror movie with my brother. Well, half watching. I was really checking email and doing other adulating things on my laptop. That’s when I realized I had an email with the subject marked as “Urgent.” Long story short, I’m a student teacher and I accidentally took home my teacher’s grade book instead of leaving it with her for parent-teacher conferences. I completely screwed her over and didn’t even realize it. I freaked out and my brother tried to calm me down by saying “we are all good at making mistakes, don’t worry about it” and it actually helped.
Knowing that I’m not alone in being really fucking good at making mistakes was a relief. He may only be fourteen, but he spoke like an adult speaking from experience. It made me wonder: if we are all so good at making mistakes, why do we freak out, especially when they can be corrected. Yes, I wasn’t able to get the grade book to my teacher in time for her parent-teacher conferences, but she has been teaching for twenty years and could figure something out on the spot and I did get it to her within twenty-four hours, less actually.
As the great Hannah Montana said, “Everybody makes mistakes” and, as my dad says, “It’s how you recover from them that matters.” I apologized profusely and hand-delivered the grade book the very next day despite her saying that mailing it to her by the end of the week was fine. When we make mistakes, we have to recognize them and make them right. It’s okay to freak out for a minute, but we must collect ourselves and right our wrongs in the most graceful manner we think is possible.
We should take into account who was and will be affected by this mistake and then act. We can’t just fix it so that we are okay. We must correct our mistakes so that everyone will be okay at the end of it.
Yes, some mistakes are heftier than others, but starting with a sincere apology for any of them is a good starting point. Going from there depends on what the mistake consisted of, however, having the confidence to overcome them is important. You can do it. This mistake isn’t the end of the world.
Once the mistake is righted, the guilt can still be there. Even though I was able to get the grade book back to my teacher, it didn’t help her when she really needed it. If I keep running this mistake and guilt through my head, I will never be able to get past it. It is vital that once the mistake is righted that you let go while keeping in mind not to do it again.
We are all good at making mistakes, its how we recover from them that matters. The next time you make a mistake that you can’t help but freak out about, breath, think and mend.