Those disastrous careless little mistakes...

[GYX_Kid]

The ones that cost us thousands of dollars+, year(s) of misery, wounds to perfectionism with ideas of permanent damage, some potential wisdom assuming motive is not destroyed... afterward reassuring ourselves "I will build everything back to as good as it was before, and be more cautious next time"

I await the next one that "fate" brings- bigger, more destructive, and more "avoidable" than ever

 

[Pyropyro]

Failure makes you stronger.

I think I heard this from my boss before:

When you're not failing, you're not trying enough

 

[Zionoxis]

I avoid failure like the plague, but these stupid mistakes are bound to hit me (thus the reason I screw up in chess at the last minute). I would be so much better of a chess player if it weren't for those last minute brain-poots.

 

[ayn]

Ughhhhh... Once again, I accidentally went back a page and lost everything i wrote.. -__-

I'll try to summarize.. I embrace failure/mistakes. When I was young I would beat myself up for every mistake I made, as I grew I realized this was horrible and unhealthy and I started to learn from my mistakes.

I pride myself on my mistakes and hope I have more of them, because if I don't how else will I grow?
If I didn't fuck up every time in the past that I did, I would be a very different person today, and for that I am happy.

 

[SandMizzle]

I'll try to summarize.. I embrace failure/mistakes. When I was young I would beat myself up for every mistake I made, as I grew I realized this was horrible and unhealthy and I started to learn from my mistakes.

Hell, I also did that till I was 12 or something. Sometimes I hit myself or I forbid myself to do things I liked to if I would have failed. It was really crazy when I look back now, you just had to bring my memories back, haven't you?^^

Nowadays I also think that failures are very important and are a big and funny part of my life (not saying that my life is a fail^^)

 

[MichiganJFrog]

So what kind of failures are we talking about here? Social? Academic? Career? All of the preceding?

 

[Pyropyro]

So what kind of failures are we talking about here? Social? Academic? Career? All of the preceding?

I think all of the above

 

[MichiganJFrog]

I think all of the above

Cool, just checking. My fortunes seem to be falling precipitously in the first area as they rise in the other two. The guy who ran the IT network for the town I used to work in said it's always better to have everyone a little bit pissed off at you than to have a few people really pissed off at you. I need to get that balance back.

Seriously, a very valuable thread for this perfectionist to read.

 

[MichiganJFrog]

And another thing: if mistakes are so valuable and beneficial, why aren't they recognized as such? Why does it seem like all the awards go to the perfectionists -- the valedictorians with the 4.0 GPAs and the employees with the perfect attendance records? I'm just sayin'...

 

[EyeSeeCold]

First thing that came to mind when I read the thread is that you got someone pregnant.


I've had (relatively) microscopic failures like in the OP, my ability to bounce back is largely due to my resourcefulness and competency. I think I could handle a major disaster for the same reasons, provided something heavily morale-draining doesn't happen to me like a permanent loss of or damage to my physical body, but you never know what's in store for you. It's easier to look in the rear view.