Why is it Easy to Relate to People Who Make Mistakes?
To Err is Human — Alexander Pope
There are perfectionists all around us, we know many of those. We are many of those sometimes for others, without even realizing. But somewhere or the other we make mistakes and the ones that are trivial enough to be overlooked are advocated to being a human.
Somehow I find it easy to relate to someone who makes as many mistakes as I do or at-least a fraction of them.
I have what has been described as “Fumblitis”. I have fallen on my back 5 times in my office on different occasions, regardless of heels, flats, sneakers or sandals. That did hurt my dignity besides my back. I tend to be clumsy, I sweat when introduced to people who walk with a stealth some times. I do get intimidated with people and I am not a pretty sight with endless grinning and puppy eyes.
So when I was sitting on the couch, watching “New Girl” , staring adoringly at Zoey Deschanel, my eyes popped out and my ears perked, when they discussed the importance of finding flaws in a person to bring down their God like stature. That made me think and reminded me of all those times I had encountered people I felt were flawless and how intimidating they looked. That small dialog from the serial flashed a lot of times in front of me when the awe of a person subsided a little when I saw them “erring” like I would totally do.
Now, I am not saying I like finding flaws in a person. And I don’t even think of these as flaws, these are just normal behavioral habits that bring out the real person, far from a personification of their perfect self. A closer cousin of this would be breaking the shell and coming out of your comfort zone. It is somehow easier for me to relate to a person who would occasionally fumble in their steps, stutter during a speech or just be plain goofy! That’s what makes it more relatable. Probably that’s the origin of cracking a joke as an Ice Breaker. The instant humor lightens the otherwise tensed atmosphere and makes everything instantly perky and relatable.
Now don’t go by my life example, because I am not a defined expert in the field of human behavior. But look at the recent and big example of the recent interview telecast of Robert E Kelly. During the interview over a video conference with BBC, his daughter comes in all hippity hoppity and stands next to him. The professor visibly tries to get the kid to steer clear of the screen but to no avail. And then his little one comes in crawling followed by the wife, who comes in sliding Ninja style. If it wasn’t for the hilarity of the situation that the video had garnered 10 million views in a day then I don’t know what else is. People were popping comments in favor of the professor saying that’s how Working from Home looks like. They were instantly able to relate to the mishap. Professor Robert came around as being a relatable human being rather than being a highly qualified intimidating subject matter expert.
Examples like these show that though we all want to be perfect, it is okay to leave a little slack here and there. We don’t have to be hard on ourselves if the day didn’t turn out as we expected, there will be a tomorrow.
A little breakfast mishap leading you to get late to the office should not be the source of a broken day, but rather accept that as human nature and move on.
Trust me you will have a much better day than pondering over the same mistake a thousand times over and ruining the rest of your day. Go out there, live the day, make mistakes, that’s what we, the humans do! ❤
