Tuesday, August 19, 2008

We all make mistakes

















"We all make mistakes
: some are small, some are large" those are the opening words spoken by Princess Kaileena in the hit video game, The Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones.

Those words are very true. It's a completely unavoidable part of life, we all make mistakes. That's a consequence of doing anything. Some people may want to try and avoid making mistakes, but that's an impossibility.

You can try and play it safe and not make any major life changing mistakes, but then at the same time you'll never make any positive life changing actions either because that takes risk, which could lead to failure, and thereby a perceived mistake.

Not taking action to avoid making mistakes is in my opinion a mistake in itself. There's nobody on the planet who isn't afraid of making a mistake, after all who wants to make one? But it happens... time after time.

Maybe we should just accept that mistakes are a part of life and that a key part of a mistake is that its not intentional. As a person who didn't make the mistake, maybe we shouldn't be so hard on those who did.

Then there's always people who say 'If only I had done this', or 'if only I had done that... then my life would be different!' My answer to that... yet another good quote.

"There are no choices. Nothing but a straight line. The illusion comes afterwards, when you ask 'Why me?' and 'What if?'. When you look back and see the branches, like a pruned bonsai tree, or forked lightning. If you had done something differently, it wouldn't be you. It would be someone else looking back, asking a different set of questions."

Max Payne in Max Payne 2

Now you may be saying... 'tsk tsk, this guy is crazy... getting quotes from videogames? Get real!' But then that too might be a mistake. To me it doesn't really matter where the inspiration comes from or in what medium, good stuff is good stuff. There are only good ideas and bad ideas, it doesn't matter where they come from.

To sound off... I'm gonna say... you're going to make mistakes. Face it, accept it. It's inevitable. What's more important is what you do after you've made a mistake. Are you going to clam up and pretend it never happened, go in to a rage, or maybe, just maybe... you might turn it in to something constructive. Who knows... sometimes a mistake might put you in an even better place than you ever imagined.

3 comments:

  1. good point. IMHO though there are no mistakes. Its all fate. Meant to be. best you can do is do the best you can. If something unexpected happens take it in your stride and get along with it eh

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  2. "there are no accidetents".. I love this quote from KUNG FU PANDA. i don't think mistakes are bad or evitable, because if you do something, right or wrong, that's how it's meant to be. it's nature.
    another qoute i like from A CINDERELLA STORY is "Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game".
    and we all know the famous "Failures are the pillars of success".. all very true.
    we all regret making the mistake but if we look back, those mistakes actually made us who we are.. no regrets then..

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  3. I love this. The concept that if I had done something differently, it wouldn't be me looking back.

    Also, I don't think you're nuts to be taking video games so seriously, after all, like you may have read, some of my favourite people live between the covers' of books' :)

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