Today’s theme for me has shaped up to be about mistakes. I thought I had caught a big one at work, but after investigating I found out that all was well, which I am glad is the case. Then, it seems like I have heard other talks or songs about mistakes today, and it has me thinking about them in general. In my mind, to make mistakes is to be human. It is just a part of life. However, I wonder how our perception of mistakes might lead to things like depression.
Is it possible that someone thinks they have made a large number of small mistakes or one big mistake and then that has led to depression? It seems entirely possible to me. In general, I think we all have a great capacity to internalize a lot of mistakes, even though there was likely many other factors that played a part. I think a lot of us put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be good all of the time, and when we do stumble, we take it very personally. So, my call here is to really take a harder look at our mistakes and see if we can lessen the severity of how we internalize them.
Now, as a disclaimer, there are some mistakes (intentional murder, intentional violent crimes) that are pretty awful, and I am not including those in this post. However, for the rest, a key point is that mistakes are likely the result of a behavior. So, the mistake is from something you did, not an extension of who you are as a person. If this is true, then internalizing the mistake is not great. You dislike the behavior, not you as a person. My hope is that you start to look at mistakes in this way and separate them from who you are. You may need to make amends or apologize for some mistakes, but overall, I hope people can understand that how we feel about our mistakes can lead us down a path to depression. But, there are healthier ways to cope with our mistakes.