Fall down, get up. Fail, learn, repeat.

77% Weekly Newsletter

Errors We Humans Do
We all make mistakes, right? To err is human, to forgive divine. Mistakes are just bound to happen because we are not perfect, try as we might. It is just how we are built.The only people who were perfect are saints, but they are no longer alive . The rest of us err and make mistakes. We do something we didn’t intend to do or, on the flip side, we don’t do something we intended to do.
I believe that we need to forgive ourselves. Any notion of God that I can imagine includes one in which God can and does forgive our mistakes. If we take any of the standard notions of God (that God has full control and power and we have free will), then how could God be mad when we make mistakes?
When I watch my children color or draw, I notice that they frequently miss their target and go outside of the lines or draw something unintended. Making a “mistake” is how we learn and grow. The problem is that we are all so hard on ourselves when we make mistakes.
We have to make mistakes in order to grow.
So here’s my question: Dare I live as though I’m allowed to make mistakes?
Think about the people who you like in your life. They’re not the ones who hold you to absolute perfection. And, aren’t they the ones you hold to absolute perfection? No, they’re the ones who you allow to err and those who allow you to err.
When you make a mistake, you ought to forgive yourself. Forgiving ourselves has to be the greatest gift that we can give ourselves, and the greatest gift we can give other people.
When we forgive ourselves, we lessen the baggage with which we walk around.
This week’s #wisdom_biscuit:
Forgive yourself.
We all make mistakes.
 

5 wisdom biscuits

Five Wisdom Biscuits

tasty, bite-sized, easily digestible bits of insight ✧✧✧1. Humility, Always.✧✧✧ We need to be humble when we are wrong.AndWe need to be humble when we are right. “When I am wrong, makeme willing to change.When I am right, makeme easy to live with.”—John C. Maxwell ✧✧✧2. LOFTY GOALS✧✧✧ A quote by my BFF Larry Keene: “Our standardsare beyond us for

Read More »

Annoyance Bingo

Annoyance Bingo.Lose your patience. Win big. ✧✧✧ Game play begins Tuesday, April 21, 2026, at 12:00am PT — First Prize: $100 ✧✧✧ The Origin of Annoyance Bingo. For years, I’ve asked mourners at funerals to track the least compassionate things said in an attempt to comfort them — and send me the best (and worst) examples. The idea: when someone

Read More »
Image of a child doing a shoulder ride.

Wastefully

  Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong would answer the question “how shall we express love?” with a single word: “Wastefully.”    ✧✧✧   We don’t express love wastefully. A story and then some thinking about why.   ✧✧✧   It’s 2006. I’m in NYC to—among other things—celebrate the fifth birthday of my first niece, Maya.  I wait outside her school

Read More »
77% Weekly Newsletter
77% Weekly Newsletter