Article April 3, 2000 ISSUE

Learning from mistakes

When "blowing it" leads to blessings

By Clifford Kapps Eriksen

Admittedly, it was a bad mistake. I shouldn't have lost my temper and yelled at my co-worker the way I did, even though his happy-go-lucky attitude had irritated me for months and often delayed the timely completion of our work. But no sooner had the last angry word passed my lips than I recognized my mistake. I felt terrible about what I had done. I tried to make amends with a feeble apology, but inside, the anger was still there.

Only when pain immobilized my arm did I begin to recognize that I had much more to learn. It occurred to me that the pain in my arm and the anger I felt were related. I had allowed impatience, condemnation, irritability, self-righteousness, and guilt to govern my thinking and actions. Now thoroughly motivated to find a solution, I set about to correct what had caused the problem in the first place.

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