We cannot save ourselves from mistakes. But it is important to know what palette of emotions our own actions can evoke in us, and how we should respond to these emotions.
In this complex world, we often make mistakes, and it is very important how we treat our mistakes.
There are people who immediately begin to look for the cause of a mistake in external circumstances and often try to blame others who have absolutely nothing to do with what happened. Of course, this creates new problems, but one can only try to dissuade them at the risk of being among the guilty ones.
There are people who are inclined to blame themselves for their every mistake — for the inability to cope with the task, for the inability to understand something, for their powerlessness in the face of difficulties, etc. Which position is better? Both are worse.
Blaming others for what you yourself are guilty of does not help to fix anything. Such people always feel right and only hate more and more both the rake they step on and those who supposedly planted them on them.
- plead guilty
But those who blame themselves are also often unable to correct their mistakes or prevent their repetition. Such a person may lack experience, specific knowledge or abilities in some way, and he may not be aware of this when he takes on a task on his own initiative or at the request of others. He believes in his abilities. And suddenly he discovers that for some reason he cannot cope with this task. He has a feeling of guilt for the inability to carry out his plan, for the fact that he does not justify the hopes placed on him. But this is not his fault. He failed to correctly assess his capabilities, he needs to learn this, and this requires effort. For such efforts, a critical attitude to one’s mistakes is not enough, one needs faith in oneself, in one’s ability to understand and change something, in order to admit to oneself: “Yes, I made a mistake, but it won’t always be like this, you can start over.” But it is precisely faith in oneself that is lacking in people who are prone to self-blame for each of their failures.
Why is that bad? The feeling of guilt in these cases is not at all the same as sober criticism and analysis of one’s mistakes. Guilt is blaming oneself as a person (“How could I do that!”). A person who feels guilty needs forgiveness, but asking for forgiveness, even if addressed to oneself, lowers the self-respect that is necessary to understand the cause of mistakes and correct them. The constantly arising feeling of guilt develops a sense of one’s own inferiority («I’m somehow not the right one») and can lead to despair. Remember the faces of people who feel guilty; in sympathizers they evoke pity. Despair blocks any constructive activity.
But there is a feeling of guilt, which is useful and even necessary if the mistake is made because of a person’s personal conscious choice, and not because he didn’t understand something, doesn’t know how, or overestimated his capabilities. He consciously chooses this or that act, based on his own interests and without thinking about the consequences of his behavior for others. Sometimes not even because he intentionally wants to harm them, and not because, due to his limitations, he is not able to foresee these consequences at all, but simply because of his focus only on himself.
So, a person leaves on his personal business from a friend who very much asks him to stay, thinking briefly when leaving: “Something doesn’t look good today,” and then he finds out that a friend was very late taken to the hospital with a heart attack or to that that same evening he committed suicide. And when one who has made such a choice in his favor then feels guilty, he does not need help to get rid of this feeling. It can contribute to his change as a person — and precisely because it is painfully experienced.