I’d like us to discuss mistakes, which we may regard as common, but also as stepping stones on our path to achieving our goals.

However, what about those moments when the perceived danger of failing is paralyzing and renders our actions dissonant?

On those occasions, I admit it is difficult to conceive the idea of falling in love with them.

Then I’m going to examine our options, facing our tendency toward errors, or ignoring it—the choice, as much as the consequences are ours. As important as such a topic is, we should consider being kinder toward ourselves the times things produce an unintentional result.

I believe you would agree if I say that errors are necessary, that they represent the foundation of our progress, the building blocks that draw us closer to perfection, even if it is only an ideal.

So, we learn that if we use too much heat, we will burn the meat; too much water on plants would drown them, too little and they would wither.

We adjust whatever we happen to be doing.

Granting we are on the same page regarding errors, I find it troubling that we may not apply such ideas when it comes to things that we care about.

We may hide them, bury them, try to make them disappear. Like an awful wound, we flinch instinctively at the mere thought of anything touching the cut.

Then I ask myself, how are we supposed to learn?

We have options.

We could avoid such pain by any preferred means, but we would risk falling into the same mistakes again and missing all its beauty when we turn our backs.

In trying to make the lurking shadows disappear, we would extinguish the light, and everything would be darkness.

Another option is to have courage. The valor to accept that what is done is done, that there is no way we could have done it differently, and with such a nagging reality accept our proness to mistakes.

I know that what we have in our hands is a matter of great importance; what we feel when we fail is proof enough of that. But I’d like us to explore the possibility that we may not have to be that severe.

What if we approach this more like a playground, than a battlefield?

When thrust with an imaginary sword, grunt, go to the ground, and make your best performance. When the game is off, you can get up unharmed. I know that it may seem like a real wound, but the more we practice the easier it gets to perform, and the less scary to be wrong.

The ideal we should strive for would be falling in love with our errors.

They are the very reason for our growth, someday they will be the source of laughter and joy, a way to give an example to someone very dear to us, they may take us to places we never imagined, and they may yield results we never conceived.

The mistakes, and more importantly what we do with them, are part of who we are. Thus, I’d like us to get to work.

Do it.

Do it more.

Do it better.

Fail.

Fail better.