When someone else makes a mistake, I always tell them, “Hey, no big deal. Perfect people are boring.”

When I make a mistake, however, I summon up the Spanish Inquisition, a howling Greek chorus of condemnation, and the ghost of Sister Mary Gwendolyn from fourth grade.

And from what I hear, I’m not the only one.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Darned if I know.  All it does is make us feel worse than we already do, and it certainly doesn’t improve the situation. I could analyze the whiz-bang out of the whys and wherefores, but  I’d rather look at a few home truths that just might help:

To err is human.

It really, really is. And–guess what?  We are all plain old garden-variety humans, and we’re going to screw up.  To think otherwise is to foster the unrealistic expectation that we are  supposed to be superhuman, above and beyond mere ordinary mortals.  (Sounds kinda arrogant when it’s put that way, doesn’t it?)

A mistake is just something that happened.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that because you make a mistake, you are a mistake.  I’ve been known to hop on board that particular mental crazy train, and in no time at all I convinced myself I was a complete, total, hopeless

Don’t go there, okay?  It’s not a fun trip, and it can be awfully hard to find your way home again.

Listen to Eleanor

It really sucks when you screw up in front of other people.  When it happens to me, I’m  always morally certain that everybody’s buzzing about it behind my back, texting about it  to their friends, and plastering it all over their Facebook pages until I remember one of my favorite quotes from Eleanor Roosevelt:

“You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.”

It’s definitely humbling, but oh so very comforting.

So anyhow, folks, we are all flawed vessels, doing the best we can with what we’ve got.  So take it easy on yourselves, okay?

Your partner in imperfection,

Donna