I made a horrible mistake! I am usually a very thorough top performer, but I relied on technology much too much and it failed me…horribly! Truth is…I never realized it failed me until it was too late to recover from the failure. That was so embarrassing. It was totally my fault. There was not one other person I could blame. I totally dropped the ball!
And, boy…did it drop with a thud that could be heard around the world!! How many times have we admitted total, unadulterated, complete, and utter failure? Not once, but layers upon layers, upon layers of failure. What a horrible feeling! How do we recover? The incident plays like our favorite song on rewind in our mind.
I did not do the work. I did not meet the deadline. I did not please the customers Woe is me. My performance for this one day was not what it has been for the other 364 days of my work year. I did not pass “GO”, I must go straight to Failures Jail. The $200 goes back into the bankers’ drawer. Every now and then, I’m reminded of my “humanness.” If that isn’t a word, it should be.
That is when I cannot do anything right. Usually, it is starts with a build, one thing goes wrong, then another, then another then another, then another and so on…until I discover I’ve not been doing things right for several weeks or sometimes months! It is humbling, Earth shattering, and makes you see just how stupid you can be on some of the most simplest things.
Like everyone else, I pull out the balloons, streamers of tears and send the invitation for a pity party to the guest of one. That lasts right up until I get a reality check. God gives me a sign that someone is doing so much worse than I am and they are totally grateful and appreciative. The balloons are popped. The tears are dried. I pull up the big girl undies. Dust off my “S” and get back in the game. If they can fight cancer head on, if they can start a benefit after losing a child; if they can go through soul shaking tragedy and spin it into something positive, I don’t get to cry over a mistake I made at the office and neither do you.
The pity party is over and we are to keep it real. We may go there, but by no means can we stay there. Chin up, soldier…we are gathered here in this game called Life!
