“The greatest mistake you can make in life

is to be continually fearing you will make one.”

―Elbert Hubbard

I’ll just tell you up front: I hate making mistakes. Actually, more accurately, I hate admitting I made a mistake.  I know this is holding me back in life—it makes me less likely to step outside my comfort zone, take risks and be honest with myself and others.

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never

tried anything new.”

―Albert Einstein

For me, there are a couple of levels of mistakes: The first I’m only a little bothered by: when I’m learning something new and therefore can’t be expected to “know it all” (yet), or when it involves something that doesn’t matter much to me. Mistakes like this seem “acceptable,” even to my perfectionistic little soul.

“Mistakes are the growing pains of wisdom.”

—William Jordan

The second, more difficult level, involves mistakes made when I “should” know better or when something matters very much to me. In the first instance, when I make a mistake it only reinforces the fact that I am, indeed, human. (I don’t know why this is so difficult for me to feel comfortable with!) In the second instance, when it’s something that matters to me, the stakes seem higher. For example, I find it excruciatingly painful to admit I’ve made mistakes parenting, as I most certainly have. (And I especially have a hard time admitting this to my husband—why is that?!)

I seem to want to keep up a façade of being, if not perfect, at least nearly so. By this time in my life, I feel I should be competent, intelligent and accomplished.  The mistakes I make just show me how very far I have to go to be the person I want to be.

“Good judgment comes from experience,

and experience comes from bad judgment.”

—Rita Mae Brown

In theory, I know the importance of mistakes. I know that without risking mistakes, I will learn nothing, and completely cease any kind of creative or spiritual growth. Denying mistakes makes them impossible to correct, hiding mistakes simply causes them to grow.  It’s just the practice of accepting and admitting mistakes is so hard!

Maybe my resistance to admitting mistakes has something to do with my ongoing battle with perfectionism, with always wanting to do things “right,” with the sometimes impossible standards I aspire to. I simply can’t be a brilliant writer, loving wife and mother, caring friend, perfect homemaker…you get the idea. I’m afraid admitting a mistake in any of these areas only draws attention to the ways in which I believe I fall short.

I wish I had some profound lesson to share with you about how admitting my mistakes has made my life richer, but I’m just starting to see the extent of my resistance to this topic.  I can only tell you that this is now something I hope to stay aware of and work on.

How do you cope with mistakes? What have you learned from them?

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include

the freedom to make mistakes.”

—Mahatma Gandhi

A couple weeks ago, my trainer took a small group of us to Fannin Hill Farm where we schooled our horses over cross country jumps, or in my case, practiced trotting over and jumping small obstacles. (Baby steps!) I’ve been to Fannin Hill several times before, and Tank and I always have a blast there—I don’t know if it’s the change of scenery or what, but we usually wind up riding at a higher level than we do at home. Like people, horses like a change of pace, so usually we all—horses and humans—have a terrific time. This day was no different. (Special thanks to Holly Bryan for sharing her photos from the day.)

Me and Tank

 For me, Fannin Hill is the perfect combination of challenge and safety. Each section of the farm has a number of jumps of various sizes and styles and plenty of room for each rider to jump or not as she sees fit. If you’re not jumping, you can trot or canter on the flat, or simply hang out and watch the others. You’re never too far away from “the herd” so your horse doesn’t get anxious about being left behind, as he might on a trail ride. There are also hills to walk up and down (good conditioning for the horse). At Fannin Hill, I’m more easily able to step outside my comfort zone—maybe because of the extra adrenaline or the element of trying to keep up with girls who could be my daughters!

Doesn't Tank have a beautiful face?

My lesson buddy Emily, with Jessie:

The positive effects of a visit to Fannin Hill carry over into my riding at home—I have more confidence in myself and my horse and we usually take a step forward in our work together. And what could be more fun than spending time with my horse and some of my horsey friends? As Gayle, our trainer said, “Aren’t horses the best hobby ever?!”

My mother and her sisters were experts at using faint praise, and “Bless her heart” was a very useful tool for them. Richard Newman, of St. Louis, does a great job here of showing us how far that praise can be stretched. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

Bless Their Hearts

At Steak ‘n Shake I learned that if you add

“Bless their hearts” after their names, you can say

whatever you want about them and it’s OK.

My son, bless his heart, is an idiot,

she said. He rents storage space for his kids’

toys—they’re only one and three years old!

I said, my father, bless his heart, has turned

into a sentimental old fool. He gets

weepy when he hears my daughter’s greeting

on our voice mail. Before our Steakburgers came

someone else blessed her office mate’s heart,

then, as an afterthought, the jealous hearts

of the entire anthropology department.

We bestowed blessings on many a heart

that day. I even blessed my ex-wife’s heart.

Our waiter, bless his heart, would not be getting

much tip, for which, no doubt, he’d bless our hearts.

In a week it would be Thanksgiving,

and we would each sit with our respective

families, counting our blessings and blessing

the hearts of family members as only family

does best. Oh, bless us all, yes, bless us, please

bless us and bless our crummy little hearts.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Richard Newman from his most recent book of poetry, Domestic Fugues, Steel Toe Books, 2009. Reprinted by permission of Richard Newman. Introduction copyright © 2012 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

I’ve written here before about my dislike of change. However, in smaller matters, I do seem to like change, even seek it out. I’m frequently reading about ways to better organize my life, get more done and bring in more happiness.  

Recently, I’ve made several little changes that have made a happy difference in my life, and I thought you might be interested in them:

I began to actively manage my email. I have several email accounts for various reasons.  After reading the suggestion to “zero out your inbox,” I did just that with the one that gets the most messages. I read and discarded or printed emails, made email folders for some of the regular newsletters I receive and so on. Now, instead of being bombarded with 25 messages every time I open this account, I usually only have a few to deal with. I can easily see anything new or urgent. If I can’t deal with it immediately, I put it in the applicable folder and voila! Empty inbox. (And what a nice feeling that is.) I plan to do this with my other accounts, too.

I reorganized my recipes. Even though I’m not wild about cooking, my family has this pesky habit of wanting dinner every night. Despite the fact that I tend to make the same things over and over again, I had a huge collection of untried recipes as well as a big three-ring binder full of recipes we’ve tried and liked. My binder was old and tattered, and our tastes have changed, and clearly it was time to do something with this mess. I could never seem to find that new recipe I wanted to try when dinnertime rolled around. After seeing a couple of versions of recipe organization systems, I took an afternoon and evening to go through all my loose recipes, keeping the ones we either already like or definitely want to try, and throwing away all the rest.  Family favorites either went into page protectors or photo sleeves (depending on their size) and the untried recipes got tucked into a pocket divider at the beginning of the appropriate section of the new binder I found. I typed a master list of our favorite recipes and slipped it into the front of the binder as well.

Even though I don’t like cooking any better with this new system, at least I can find the recipes I want when it comes time to make them. (One thing I didn’t do that I wanted to was put the date on the untried recipes, and after six months or a year if I haven’t tried them, out they go. I’ll incorporate this with any new recipes I add.)

I stopped writing “Morning Pages”…and started writing them again. Ever since I read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, I’ve been writing “Morning Pages” every day (well, M-Fri.) Some days, that was the only actual writing I did. Day in, day out, three pages in long hand would pour (or dribble, depending on the day) into my composition notebooks. Every day began to sound the same (what I did yesterday, what I will do today…). I bored myself. I wasn’t getting the bubbling up of ideas I got when I first started writing Morning Pages, and frankly I was a little sick of them. So I quit writing them. Surprisingly, the Creative Police did not come and arrest me, and after a week or two, I found I missed them. I was at a loose end in the morning, drifting without anchor. One day I picked up my composition book again, and words poured forth. Now I’m back to writing Morning Pages most mornings, if not all.

I began Yoga Journal’s 21-Day Yoga Challenge, beginner level. Each day, I get an email with a link to a yoga routine and meditation, a challenge tip and a recipe (and yes, the Yoga Challenge has its own email folder). I’ve dabbled in yoga off and on for years, and wanted to add more yoga to my exercise routine because it makes me feel good. The longest video so far has been 35 minutes, so I’ve been able to fit them into my days fairly easily. Every morning I check the daily video to see how long it is and what time of day it would be best to do it—some of the routines are relaxing and some are invigorating. I’ve been surprised at exactly how difficult some of the poses and routines can be, even though they are labeled for beginners.

Finding a way to fit in an extra 15 to 30 minutes of exercise doesn’t seem like it would be too hard—but sometimes it is. I’ve figured out, though, that because it’s a “challenge,” I’ve taken it on as such, and really make an effort to do it every day. When I focus on getting it done, I find a way. (I’ve missed two days in the past two weeks.) I’m wondering what else I could “challenge” myself to do—maybe 15-30 minutes of extra writing every day? I think that’s doable!

None of these changes is anything very flashy or earth-shattering, but taken together, they’ve made my day-to-day life a little more pleasant.

What happy little changes have you made lately?