I almost believe this myself. It doesn`t mean that I don`t believe in error, or in sin, or in misjudgement or poor judgement, or in the reality and consequences of being irresponsible. Rather, I think there is a certain stigma around the word mistake, as well as a kind of overuse and misuse and abuse of the word, such as the current mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford has famously indulged in rather than simply admitting that he has made wrong choices, and facing the consequences of his actions and moving forward from there.
It isn't that mistakes don't or can't possibly exist. Try to convince any math teacher that two plus two equals five. Or for that matter, try to convince me. What I mean to say is that anything can be redeemed and any and every one of our missteps, errors, miscalculations, and even the results of our most egregiously selfish and irresponsible and downright cruel and vindictive behaviour can be in a sense recreated and made into something good, beautiful, or at least something useful or serviceable.
I particularly know this through my work as an artist. Once I have let go of my particular plan or ideal of how a painting or drawing should turn out and have surrendered to that magical, organic process of being creative, I have often been amazed, not only at how I have been able to make good of my alleged mistakes, but even of how they could work into a finished work of art more beautiful, and more powerful and meaningful than whatever my original intent.
This is also an approach that I try to take in my work as a mental health peer support worker, as well as in my own life of ongoing recovery and increased and enhanced well-being. I celebrate trade offs, especially while facing the reality that in many ways, for a variety of reasons I have never been able to, in socially conventional contexts, live up to my full potential as they say. Rather than allow any resulting void in my life to swallow me alive I have chosen to celebrate this lack by developing my talents as an artist, as a writer, becoming fluent in Spanish and working well in activism for the poor and homeless as well as in a profession working in mental health which I treat as a life calling. Members of my family who ever cared for me are all dead. The others are long gone. Yet I have friends and in my church and with others community. Instead of obsessing over not feeling deeply loved I have opted to love freely and fervently, but without possessing or entrapping. By practicing gratitude every day I often feel that my life is overflowing with joy and goodness and also because of my deep walk with God and sense of his presence and purpose in my life.
I was never able to finish my post secondary education. Throughout my high school years my life was in a state of chronic upheaval begun by my parents' divorce when I was thirteen. I had neither the means nor the appropriate support to continue in college long enough to graduate, get into university and get a degree. The competing needs of paying rent and food combined with the lack of personal strength and endurance to be able to hold down a full time job while completing my studies was likely the cause of this. As well, because of childhood abuse from members of my family I lived through that time with undiagnosed post traumatic stress disorder which did much to compromise my ability to move forward in life. Having limited post secondary education and little aptitude for most forms of low skill labour (but certainly not laziness or lack of motivation) my own life has often been marked with poverty and hardship. I have never owned a condo, townhouse, a house, land not even a car. On the other hand I have learned to be flexible and adaptable and grateful for the little I have and I have done very well with very little. I have acquired incredible budgeting skills that I don't think I would have gained had I always been well incomed not to mention a tremendous and intense empathy for the poor, afflicted and marginalized. Now, thanks to BC Housing I can live in dignity and actually afford the luxury of an annual foreign holiday lasting a month or longer as well as other various First World Problems while earning but twelve whopping bucks an hour.
This is not to say that I have never made poor choices, or that I have never been irresponsible or shown bad judgment or nursed toxic and destructive grudges towards others. What this does say is I have faced and overcome each and every one of my demons by accepting responsibility for my actions and their consequences. I feel incredibly rich for the depth and strength that I have gained and go on gaining because of this.
Our lives are works of art and we make this art in cooperation with God, with others and with life itself. We often wonder at the apparent mistakes that we make and things that have marred or even destroyed the beauty of our work but I say find in the mistake, in the blemish, the new tools that you need to work with and you will find that the end result will be more beautiful and more wonderful and more powerful than anything you could have dreamed.
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