The impact of making mistakes

Mistakes. Any person who said that he didn't have any regrets ever would only mean that he didn't regret his mistakes, not that he didn't make any at all. And maybe that's a good state of mind to be in, because mistakes aren't worth regretting; they serve as a learning experience that can end up making a big impact on our lives, and that's nothing to regret at all.

At some point or the other in their lives, everyone finds themselves in a position that they are not proud of. Everyone does things that make them guilty.

Mistakes have a deep, everlasting impact on us; we never forget them. We lock up the memories in a box and try to fling the box out of our system, but the farthest it can go is an obscure corner of the mind. Every now and then, the box opens up and floods us with memories of the things we've done, people we've upset, and the damage we've caused as a result of that.

Sometimes we even wonder if the world would simply be better off without us. The answer to that is, no. It wouldn't!

Everyone has done things worth being guilty of. Everyone has done damage. It's an honourable trait to be able to accept your mistakes, instead of trying to cover them up, so that deserves a pat on the back. What counts is how well you've realised that you've gone wrong. Of course we feel miserable, but it's only worth making a mistake if the impact it's had on you is deep enough to remind you never to let yourself down that road again. To err is human, but to make the same mistake more than once is downright foolish.

My opinion is that mistakes can sometimes end up having a really positive impact on the ones who make them. Theoretically knowing that the right path is in a particular direction is different from finding for yourself that the wrong one is in another direction. It's the best way to learn something with perfection. Of course, it's not called a mistake when done intentionally, only when the harm is unintended and comes as a surprise to the doer does it exert its positive impact.

Of course, the best way to learn from mistakes is to learn from someone else's; the people who manage to do this are the smartest and the luckiest. Why get your hands dirty when you've seen it happen to the person who went before you? No matter how much you try though, this can't happen all the time; every once in a while, we are bound to find ourselves in a situation we wish we wouldn't have been in - and in such cases, letting it have a good impact upon us is better than lamenting it!

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.