There was this mother who never allowed her toddler son to put feet on the ground. Whenever she saw him trying to walk she would just lift him up in her arms. Was she scared that he would fall and get himself hurt? I don’t know. This  lady’s mother-in-law used to tell her quite often that if she did not put him down he might never learn to walk. The child, though, did learn to walk, as walking is a natural process. But he missed out on the wonderful experience of learning that falling doesn’t mean the end of the world, of learning that one could still get up and walk after the fall. Perhaps, if he had learnt that then he would have emerged stronger as a person.

There’s another example of two people in a workplace. One of them is a thorough perfectionist (Let’s name him ‘A’) and the other commits lot of mistakes (Let’s name him ‘B’). ‘A’ would not tolerate any mistake at all. Please read the conversation between the two.

‘B’ : “I think…. I have…. committed a mistake.”

‘A’ : (in a raised voice) “Mistake? Again????? What’s it, now?”

‘B’ describes the mistake. ‘A’ fumes with anger.

‘A’ : “How many times have I told you not to do this? When I tell you something you just don’t understand. You will learn only when somebody thrashes you, no?”

All the while ‘B’ stands with his head bowed, not knowing how to react and waiting for the barrage of anger to subside. After a while ‘B’ gathers a bit of courage.

‘B’ : “Yes sir, I accept humbly that I have committed a mistake. What is done cannot be undone but…….isn’t there a solution?

‘A’ : “Solution, huh? You muddle up things and then you want me to find solution? Now you do whatever you want to.” Saying this ‘A’ walks out of the room angrily.

Poor ‘B’. He had never thought that the situation would turn out to be so bad. Today, after working with ‘A’ for years, he regretted the fact that he himself was not a perfectionist. He tried hard to become like ‘A’. Unfortunately, the more he tried to be like ‘A’, the more mistakes he committed. And he did not seem to understand where and why he went wrong. It hurt him a lot.

I am sure, some of my blogger friends might have faced a similar problem at the workplace. It’s so difficult for some people to accept that no man is absolutely perfect, that mistakes are an integral part of life. Like the toddler in the first example and like ‘B’ in the second example, we are all scared of making mistakes simply because right from the beginning, we are told that our mistakes will not be tolerated at all.  I do agree that there are certain cases where there’s no scope for any mistakes, like in matters of life and death, but in other cases when, out of ignorance, a mistake does happen, does that mean it’s the end of the world? Is it not possible to learn from the mistakes? One of my friends sent me a message, which goes like this. “Every time we fall in life, we give up our dreams, give up ourselves. Waves are inspiring, not because they rise and fall, but because each time they fall, they never fail to rise again.” May be the world at large needs to learn this aspect of life or may be I am just being plain stupid.