Learning Lessons the Hard Way

Call it what you will – running on fumes, Mercury Retrograde, accidentally stepping on too many sidewalk cracks, etc. – but my, oh my, it’s been a weird week – have you felt it too?

Between the things I accidentally forgot (which I never do) and the things I accidentally said (which I never say), I felt more off kilter than I’ve been in awhile. Plus, even with all the rationalizing I was doing in my head, I couldn’t figure out the lesson the Universe was trying to share with me.

And then I received it head on.

Cut to this past Monday morning – I was perfectly executing my timed out morning schedule in order to get to the bus on time. I’m talking lunch packed ahead of time, knowing exactly what I was going to wear, having everything laid out, etc.

I head to the bus stop all proud of myself, mentally receiving so. many. gold. stars. I decide to do a last minute check of my belongings as the bus approaches… just to realize I forgot my phone. (Yes, I definitely could have left it behind but for work and emergency reasons, I often don’t leave my house without my phone.)

The bus came and went and I started my work week off 25 minutes late.

As I headed back home to retrieve my phone, I couldn’t help but chuckle at how a simple thing could throw off an amazing morning so far. I learned that you can have all the best intentions in the world and still fall short. It’s simply part of the human condition we all bear. At the end of it, we can be as hard and strict on ourselves to be *perfect* but we all make mistakes regardless if we want to.

And that’s okay.

To top it all off, it can be tough in a social media world to be anything less than constantly flawless and smiley but I was reminded that we often resonate most with those who overcome challenges because that’s what we’re consistently doing.

Relish in the joy that you will screw up. Why? Because then, you’ll be able to live more authentically to yourself. You can give yourself the permission slip to try and fail over and over again for the sake of experiencing all that life has to offer.

When we give ourselves the space to make mistakes and grow from them, we can become more kind and empathetic people – and that is truly something worth celebrating.