All mistakes, sooner or later, turn into something laughable and tiny. Even the most serious mistakes. And if it only takes a few minutes to learn the lesson that these mistakes teach us, if they are not globally monstrous and only affect our lives, there is nothing terrible in letting go of them at that very moment – completely letting go – and putting a period. Stopping the self-blame and guilt over the mistake, just moving forward.
It will all be forgotten and turn into a reason for laughter – sooner or later.
I’m not saying this needs to be done necessarily. Some people need time to feel the depth of the mistake and its impact on life, but there are those (like me) who continue to revisit moments from the past where they stumbled, even if it was something not very serious (stupid decisions or reckless behavior), and continue to scold themselves, feeling the same way as they did right after making the mistake.
Sometimes this happens because of being stuck in the very feeling, trying to avoid feeling it in its entirety, and along with that, avoiding the realization of the depth of the mistake and learning from the situation. Not reaching the very bottom of the frustration from the mistake, a person tries to forget it and never learns their lesson, but inevitably comes back to this feeling of frustration as an uncompleted, “unpassed” material. And when this happens later, it is usually unexpected and unforgiven, and the person tries even harder to avoid reliving that frustration, especially considering that it usually happens at an entirely inconvenient time.
Meanwhile, it’s enough to trust this feeling, go all the way to the bottom, learn the lesson, and consciously move on. And this mistake will cease to be painful and will turn into a reason for jokes.
For some people, this ability is innate, and for others, it has to be learned. Otherwise, the accumulated frustration from endless unlearned lessons from past mistakes will turn a person into a being who completely loses the sense of their own value, turning into a failing student – a bundle of pathologically unlearned lessons – unassimilated wisdom from their own mistakes.