Mistake (noun): 1. An error or fault resulting from defective judgment, deficient knowledge, or carelessness. 2. A misconception or misunderstanding.
The perfectionist in me screams when I make a “mistake,” whether that is the food in my body or the people I choose to let into my heart. My nature is to beat myself down when I make a mistake or don’t do as well as I should. I will make a good choice afterward, then once I make another bad one, I tear myself apart. It’s a vicious cycle.
Watching the season three finale of one of my favorite TV shows, "Castle," gave me hope. Kate Beckett, the female lead, was speaking at the funeral of the precinct’s captain, and she said that the biggest thing that her captain taught her was that “we are bound by our choices, but we are more than our mistakes.” The choices that we make are ours to own up to and live with, but our poor choices do not define us.
As we all know, no one is perfect, and we will not always make the best or right decision, but making wrong choices offers us the chance to learn and grow as people. Those bad choices haunt us, and we make certain that we never repeat them. Taking what happened as a result of poor choices can help us to better understand what we can do better the next time we are faced with a similar choice.
Growing up in a Christian home, I was conditioned to believe that my sins hurt God, so I avoided doing bad things because I did not want to fall out of God’s favor. I realized just recently that as long as I hold the Lord in my heart, I will never fall from His favor. God is loving and forgiving, and He understands that I am still finding myself and learning to become my own person, but continuously lifting my life up to Him and remaining His child who praises His name will allow me to go to Heaven someday.
No one ever goes through life and comes out unscathed; we each have our blemishes. The thing about blemishes is not that they are a result of puberty and improper facial care, but they appear at the surface and remain there. Blemishes do not seep into our skin and infect us; they are the outward proof of the perfect imperfection of human nature. We are not cookie-cutter products of reproduction, but that was nature’s intent, and even if we ourselves would rather not accept that we are imperfect beings, others do.
One day, someone will come along and look past those blemishes and see you for the person that you are. Someone will kiss your blemishes and cherish the humanity of each and every one of them. They might be products of your mistakes, but when you’re lucky enough to find someone who does not see you as a myriad of poor decisions and imperfections, be grateful. At last, you will see that your mistakes do not fetter you; instead, they enhance you.
I encourage you to keep making mistakes but make sure that you learn from them. Pull an all-nighter when you have a big project due the next day, or eat some junk food when you’re having a terrible day. When you want to get mad at yourself and call yourself “stupid” or “fat,” don’t. Accept what you did and maybe do a few extra sit-ups in the gym, but forgive yourself.
Do not let your mistakes shackle you to the person you were the day before; allow them to release you to fly to the person you want to be tomorrow.
