Screw ups and life lessons go hand in hand, like rice and beans, peanut butter and jelly, and lamb and tunafish. You don’t get the good stuff without putting up with the bad.
Rice and beans give you gas. Peanut butter and jelly makes a mess. And, lamb and tunafish just stink. While we’re on the topic of food, let’s ponder this…
I have a tendency to bite off way more than I can chew. I do feel like it’s an area that I’ve improved in but could use some work.
You know when you take too big of a bite and you have no room left in your mouth to move some of it in order to chew?
Or, is that just me because I eat like an animal?
You can’t convince me that you’ve never taken too big of a bite and found yourself sitting there wondering how the hell you’re not going to choke.
I’ve been there with food but also with work. I’ve taken on way too many projects and promised to hit due dates that had zero chance of happening.
PUNCH LINE: I’ve learned my threshold through fucking up.
Contrary to popular belief, I’ve screwed up many times. Whether it’s talking about an old relationship on a podcast, leaving frozen turkey out on the counter overnight, or miscalculating a sale in my head, I’ve fucked up.
But, fucking up is perfectly okay. We all do it. Of course, some are worse than others but that’s beside the point. What’s important is what we do afterwards and what we learn from it.
If you learn nothing, you’ll no doubt make the same mistake again, probably multiple times. But, with a little effort, you can learn a whole lot through mistakes.
I’m self-aware enough to know that I learn by doing. There’s only one way that I learn better than doing and that’s fucking up. Of course it’s not the most efficient nor fun, but damn do I learn from my screw ups.
I’m also proud of the fact that I can own up to my shortcomings and admit that I’ve made a mistake. I’m also proud that I can say with absolute certainty (well as much absolute certainty as anyone can say), that I will not make that mistake again.
There’s just something in the way that I’m wired that won’t let me forget about that screw up. I’m not mad about, at all. I think it’s a good thing. That mechanism allows me to spit the food back on the plate instead of hard-headedly trying to swallow.
By spitting the food out, I’m able to eventually eat it all, just not in one bite.
But, one doesn’t really know how big of a bite they handle until they put too much food in their mouth. This is an acceptable screw up, at least the first time. If you keep doing it to yourself, then you’re just a Grade A dumbass and deserve to choke.
I would say that I’m a Grade B or an AA dumbass, whichever one is a step below the best. But, like I said, I’ve gotten much better over the years and will continue to do so.
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If one doesn’t admit he/she is wrong and they refuse to spit out the food, they are unable to chew it and will eventually starve to death. Now, isn’t that a sick, twisted piece of irony?
You must admit defeat or you’ll be face to face with your demise. That’s the other element here, you can’t be too proud to say that you messed up. Nobody is expecting perfection from you, and you shouldn’t expect it either.
Unless, you’re definition of perfect is the same as Billy Bob Thornton’s in Friday Night Lights. I’m on board with that!
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I guess what I’m saying here is that I’ve never been afraid to screw up. I’ve accepted that there will be times I mess up. Aiming for perfection is exhausting and a fool’s errand. I also discuss this in “Relentless Progress.”
Of course, one would be incredibly foolish to pursue screwing things up on purpose. I don’t believe one learns anything from that endeavor except maybe how to get a good ass-whippin’. But, in this offended, 2018 world we find ourselves in, I doubt one would even learn that.
Some of my best moments are because of my worse moments; moments where I’ve screwed up. Moments like…
….losing about $8,000 on an engagement ring I had bought for my cheating ex-girlfriend of four years…
(although this one probably saved me tens of thousands in the long run)
….finding out the girl you love doesn’t think it’ll work because I’m not willing to work the job she wants her husband to have… (diff. from the one above)…
(this one taught me that nobody is worth losing yourself over… if you’re not happy in your own skin, there’s not a chance in hell you’ll be happy anywhere else)
….moving to fuckin’ Arkansas for a girl… (same one as the previous)…
(like I said if you’re not happy in your own skin, you won’t be happy anywhere else, especially Arkansas)
Now, that is far from an extensive list of my screw-ups and/or problems but nobody really gives a shit. If one is observant, they’d recognize the common theme in the above screw ups: women or a woman, I guess.
That’s because I put them and their happiness before my own. In my defense, I thought that’s how love worked. In reality, it got me many sleepless nights and almost one too many heartbreaks.
I’m not shitting on Love. I think it’s one of the greatest things one could experience. I don’t even wish for any of my time back because, truth be told, we had some good moments, great moments and I still like to think that those moments mean something to them.
Realistically, they probably don’t. I mean what good would come of it for them? So, they shared a few intimate moments with a dude who lives out of his truck and just wants to snowboard. Big deal.
Hopefully, I have set a solid standard for how a guy should treat them but who knows, girls like that may not deserve it… I’m looking too much into it at this point and it’s drastically skewing how much this really affects my day to day life.
Man, I just long for a simple existence of a minimalist lifestyle that makes others ask the question ‘what’s all possible for me, in this life?’ I just want people to live a life fulfilled. I hope that my life can serve as an example. That’s what I’m striving for anyway.
Alright. This shit is going no-where fast. You see why it’s sometimes frustrating for me to put together an article that I can be proud of that doesn’t wander off topic and get lost in half a doze rabbit holes…
SQUIRREL!
I think I already said the punch line and I’m not editing this. It needs to get out of my head; I need to be alleviated from this tom-foolery, malarkey, nonsense. Nobody’s gonna read this shit… almost a thousand words in… geezzz…
Maybe the irony of all of this is that this a fucked up blog and I will learn much from it…
