Mistakes, missteps and assets

 We all make so many mistakes in life. Miscalculations in finances, relationships, job choices and even careers. We stuff up in parenting and in every day life. We trip up and hurt ourselves, walk around with bruises on our legs and hurt our backs lifting boxes.

I tend to focus on my mistakes. And it is because I notice the consequences and blame myself and wonder about the what ifs.

At the end of the day, none of them are earth shattering mistakes. I maintain that I try my best to live without regrets. Even when I lament my mistakes, I try to focus on the positive outcomes. Or at least if I feel terrible, I allow myself the wallowing for a day or so and then move on.

I mostly learn from my mistakes, although I do think it takes a number of mistakes in the exact same area to make me understand the lesson. Slow on the uptake of emotional learning.

There is one thing that is never a mistake, and that has so far never had negative consequences. Albeit painful, love is never a waste. I think it is the salve that soothes the worst of mistakes, and the consequence that is never a regret.

It is responsible for a lot of bad decisions, I grant. However, genuine , and unconditional love does not ever hurt anyone. It stays and endures, and allows, bonds and forgives.

Genuine love endures over years of hurt and forgives the mistakes that others make.

Genuine love allows for tears and recrimination and upholds the values the loved one stands for.

I love a lot of people who perhaps on the surface do not deserve my love. But the fact of the matter is that the love I give is not expectant, nor reciprocated at times. It is a never ending source of power and energy that renews with the giving.

I know this probably sounds a bit mushy, but true love is not something that necessarily shows. It is not the romantic gush that is spewed in movies. It is the evidence of strength in conflict, the upholding of boundaries, the allowing of growth and separation, the pain of goodbye and freedom of being yourself. The belief in your value as a human and the giving of a bit or a lot of yourself without the expectation of any specific reward. True love is invisible. It is the desire to do a good job or a good deed not because anyone is watching or because you feel guilty, but because you want to give of yourself, and spread yourself thin over the world until you are spent. It is the desire to simply love because it is good.

This is the only asset I have that could never be taken away by a prison sentence, or the deprivation of freedom of mind. Even in the darkest recesses of my mind, I would find it. I truly believe that love in its purest essence is something we must learn to do. Something that is essential to our survival as a species. It translates into empathy and substance and into doing and building. Supporting and nurturing.

I have a long way to go in my journey of learning how to love properly. Self love has been the hardest of lessons in this life.

And the selflessness of allowing and letting go is hard. Such a huge part of love that is overlooked when you are in the midst of it.

Allowing someone to leave and let them go on their own journey, whether they are a friend, child or partner. This is love. It is a way to demonstrate that you have that person’s best interest in mind, even if it means they need to not be in contact with you in order to procure that growth.

Allowing others to make their own choices in life and have their own opinions, whether I agree with them or not. Respecting and practising silence when appropriate. Breaking my own rules and changing them to adapt to others’ comfort. Learning new ways and aging gracefully in the process. This is love.

Someone asked me recently what my specialty is in medicine. I have a lot of skills and experience, that is true.

But I really do believe that my desire to impart knowledge and share it with others, communicate for understanding and give time to others selflessly is my super power.

I am not the cleverest, or the loudest(eek), or the fastest even. But I try to give of my time, understanding and love. In every day life and work.

I hope that when I am gone, this is one of the first things that people say about me. I know they will say I am silly, I am aware of that. But I hope they say I am kind.

Because I make mistakes, and I will continue to make them, but in all of my mistakes, I will try to make them kindly, thoughtfully and deliberately.