My
Best Mistake… ….
Examine the road over which
the fault has passed…page 11 Les misracles by Victor Hugo
My best mistake……when asked to write this piece , I was
quite confused, because I sat down and took a critical look at my life and said
“ gosh this has been a life of many mistakes, never mind that this was supposed
to be a talk on my best mistake in the course of my working experience, however
i implore you to all remember that man is a whole being with many parts, his
work , personal life, spirituality , social life all form a blend which
eventually defines him…and man , whether he likes it or not learns from his
mistakes,…..we are all like children,
when it comes to making mistakes, who having been burnt by fire once will never
go near it again…by intuition we just learn, that is the sole reason why a
person who has seen it, done it , being there, will appear sharper and more
focused than someone who is but
experiencing it anew….so mistakes are not bad after all…hey how many of us are Christians
and Catholics. .i am, well in the course of human history according to the catholic doctrine, the worst
mistake ever made was by eve, that fantastic
woman , who ate the fruit, well can you blame her, it was an error borne out of
securing a career advancement , she wanted to be as wise, as knowledgeable as God, her big boss…what other career move
can be as grand as that ….well the rest is history….the point here however is
that many thousands of years after that, the whole of the catholic church calls
this mistake of hers that “sweet fall of Eve”…how appropriate, because they say
without the fall of eve in the garden , the need for Jesus wouldn’t have been
necessary , hey how many of us Christians would want to live without Jesus. definitely not me……well am not here to
preach or pontificate, no, neither am I here to tell you how not to make a
mistake or tell you I have never made one, nope. .I am here to tell you about
the many mistakes I have made and the lessons I have learnt from making them,
and to ask myself and you guys whether
the lessons gained from making this mistake was worth it
I do remember my very 1st day at work , in my
former establishment, work hours was between 8 am and 6 pm daily, and work
hours were quite hectic, not like here where with a little wit you could plan
your time and day, and not be too stressed when the day ends, nope , there I
could not control the variables,, the
phones rang every time and I was obliged to pick it up, people keeping you on
the phone for hours asking for clarifications , asking for information, you had
an email every 20secs, and you had to reply ,SLAs had to be met ,well along with these I was to
send in a report at 6pm every day, well
it so happened that on this day , my charming boss walks up to me at 6 pm of
this said day , and ask me to go out with him for a drink ,I haven’t sent in my
report but I oblige, he is my boss, we talk and laugh, I
feel good at the end of the day, I have impressed my boss, I think , and well
am sure he will understand, I was with
him, following day I get into the office early 6am, sent in my report and went
about the business of the day, at 10am, I get my 1st query , “please
note that you have not been employed to do things at your own time, 6pm is
6pm”..it reads, my 1st mistake, but my 1st lesson in the
corporate world, work is work and pleasure is pleasure…..fantastic!.....life is
a potpourri of mistakes and lessons , and can one really say there is a best
one , I think not, but it is my belief that depending on the lessons learnt every mistake made becomes our best mistake
, because the lessons learnt are kind off unique, it is like falling for the wrong guy
before prince charming comes along or before we finally accept the prince
charming that has always been there, each time we say , never again, but sometimes, many of us still find ourselves in
the same boat again, but we all know
that no 2 relationships are alike, no 2 mistakes are alike……and just like
man/woman relationship one doesn’t walk
into it, without having thought things through, without having weighed all the
odds.. No, you walk into these relationships with your head and heart both
reasoning….same thing with life in general, we live it with our heads, and
heart , we think it through and think about our every move well, we check
all the variables , and then after doing
this and in the course of time we realize that we have been wrong in judgment
for some actions taken , we realize we have made a mistake, we are not too hard on
ourselves….because the errors were a function of the information available to
us at the given time, moreover it is in this falls, these mistakes that we
learn, every time I tried and erred , I learnt something new, I developed so to
speak, however a lot of us also for fear
not making these “mistakes”, become too
careful , I think another word for that in this case is cowardly, but remember nothing ventured, nothing gained…and
I think for people like this if asked to write about my best mistake . they will
write that their best mistake was having not tried at all….they are the ones who
in a meeting , with all the power brokers of their organization around , are so
timid to contribute, so consumed by fear that when they have all the answers in
their heads, sit still in their chairs, scribbling nothing on the note pads in
front of them, thinking “should I talk, should I talk”, when even asked, “hello
miss kemi, you have something to say”, the fear of not making a mistake drives
them into saying “nothing Sir”…waoh opportunity lost…can never be regained…..hmm,
well so far if I still haven’t made a point , then I reckon that giving this
talk is another mistake, well the error is
mine but the lessons will be mine eventually too …….. my
best mistake, now my best mistakes( for they are so many ) have been all the time
when I really wanted something and fear held me back, it has been all those times
when I could have added value and I did not, it has been those times when I met
with a challenge and rather than rise up to it, I cowed in submission, my best
mistake has been all the opportunities I did not seize, for the results of
these actions are forever lost in time…in simple words : my best mistakes were
my inactions. For in time I have indeed realized that if I had summoned the
courage to carry out all these acts I indeed will have been light years ahead
of where I presently stand.
Thank you
