On Mistakes

Matt Cascardi
Aug 24, 2017 · 3 min read

A few days ago I made a faux pas on a date, something that I expressed without inhibitions and it was not received as I had hoped. Did I present this information awkwardly and at a less than ideal time? Yes. It changed the perspective of the other person on the nature of our relationship in a way I did not mean for it to. When I noticed that this action had a negative effect, my initial reaction was to examine the actions leading up to it, and to apologize and express my regret for doing so. In an attempt to alleviate the negative perception of this action, I took the responsibility for making a mistake.

What if our ‘mistakes’ aren’t mistakes at all? What if they are just the right actions we take based on our external and internal environments? When we get negative feedback on something we perceive that as a mistake that needs to be corrected. But if you understand that there is no wrong way to feel, think, act (and I am speaking of morally and ethically aligned actions, not intentionally hurtful, manipulative, or destructive behavior) but our general free expression in social relationships, which are often messy and difficult to communicate when feelings are involved. In the next few days I looked over the situation and I realized something. I didn’t make any mistake here, I simply expressed some information (perhaps poorly presented), but nonetheless the information came from an honest and genuine place, and it’s meaning to me was clear (of course it was cause it’s easy to know your own meanings). The perception of this to the other person however, seemed to be taken differently than I had expected. My feelings were hurt when I noticed their tone of communication change. I hate being misunderstood and I felt like I was in this case, so I made an effort to attempt to bring some more clarity to what I had intended and the particular significance of my actions as I had intended.

Upon further inspection, this reaction by the other person revealed something, this person had a fear (from their previous experiences) that this action caused to be activated. They were not only reacting to my words and actions, but to their perception of what that means based on a different set of circumstances that they perceived to be the same as the current one. In a way they gave me some more information about where they stand in relation to our connection. As it turns out, this is valuable information that I needed to have in order to get a clearer picture of the full situation outside of just what had transpired between the two of us to this point.

Dating, relationships, family, even work relationships and friendships, they all at some point involve expressing our internal worlds and finding out how that interacts with the external world. Know that when you express yourself from a genuine heartfelt place, there are no ‘mistakes’. Take the time to examine yourself, and after you have done so, look again at the situation and examine the other. You’ll find that between your perspective and theirs is the whole truth of the situation. There is no singular truth in a dynamic interpersonal relationship. There are multi-faceted aspects to the truth and your thoughts, feelings, and actions are not mistakes. The feedback you get is meaningful information that you could not have gotten without venturing into that realm and you will be better off when you have a more complete picture of all of the factors involved. The experience of seeing these events from all sides shows that you are moving out of a singular first-person perspective and into a more complete perspective which is more accurate to the reality that we are in, co-created among everyone involved, and the unanswered questions and emotional pain will be reduced.

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