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mharrington85
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27 May 2023, 2:12 pm

If we all make mistakes, why does society frown upon mistakes?



Fenn
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27 May 2023, 5:50 pm

Big Bird has a song “Everyone makes mistakes, oh yes they do”


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TwilightPrincess
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27 May 2023, 5:52 pm

Not all mistakes are created equal.


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IsabellaLinton
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27 May 2023, 5:58 pm

mharrington85 wrote:
If we all make mistakes, why does society frown upon mistakes?


Society doesn't frown on mistakes unless they pose a public danger (construction, assault, DUI).
In general, they frown on people who don't learn from their mistakes.



mharrington85
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27 May 2023, 7:22 pm

IsabellaLinton wrote:
mharrington85 wrote:
If we all make mistakes, why does society frown upon mistakes?


Society doesn't frown on mistakes unless they pose a public danger (construction, assault, DUI).
In general, they frown on people who don't learn from their mistakes.


Why then do we get criticized for making mistakes?



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27 May 2023, 7:42 pm

mharrington85 wrote:
Why then do we get criticized for making mistakes?


I don't know people who are critical of mistakes. Do you?

What kinds of mistakes are you referring to, and who is judging you?



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27 May 2023, 8:52 pm

IsabellaLinton wrote:
mharrington85 wrote:
Why then do we get criticized for making mistakes?


I don't know people who are critical of mistakes. Do you?

What kinds of mistakes are you referring to, and who is judging you?


Try being a musician.

My senior year in high school, I played in the National High School Honors Band, under the late revered and most feared Dr. William D. Revelli, long time director of bands at the University of Michigan. Off the podium, he was the nicest guy you’d ever meet, however, once on the podium, he was a monster and a tyrant, in addition to being a perfectionist.mage a mistake, and you spent the next 2 hours listening to his diatribes on perfection.

Why the interest on perfection? Well, we can thank the recording industry for that. (Or the conductor view of perfection.). That’s why you’ll hear me say I’m a lousy perfectionist!



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27 May 2023, 11:45 pm

There are many musicians in my life.
The pressure is very steep in public performance.
Chefs and hospitality personnel are really demanding too.
Again, those are public service.

Usually in our private lives or private business mistakes are forgiven.
The hardest part is often forgiving ourselves.



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28 May 2023, 6:17 am

I don't think mistakes are usually forgiven. Often there is no forgiveness to be given, the damage is already done. If you break something, it's still broken, even if someone tries to make you feel better about it, there's no putting it back together. The same can happen with interpersonal relationships. For instance you can be a model employee but one day you lose your temper and scream at someone and you can't take it back, and you lose your job. Even with a friend or acquaintance, some things can be forgiven, but some you can't take back.



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28 May 2023, 8:01 am

Well then, I guess I'm a pushover. I mean that sincerely. Maybe I've screwed up throughout my life. I tend to forgive people very easily because I don't like the heaviness of being burdened by resentment. It feels better for me to forgive in most instances, even if it's a difficult process. The way I see it, life's too short to carry animosity toward people. I already have enough emotional baggage as it is. If I need to fire someone because they don't follow company policies or they make a big error that costs the company money, I'll fire them. That doesn't mean I'll harbour a grudge or hold it against them personally. It's like, if my child made a mistake and stuck their finger in a light socket I'd correct them and stop them or possibly even "punish" them briefly, but I'd still consider it a learning opportunity. I wouldn't refuse to forgive them. I was taught the golden rule and I treat people the way I want to be treated.

That being said, based on responses here it seems other people don't have the same philosophy as mine. Perhaps there are people in the world who don't forgive me for mistakes. I always assumed that people do, but it seems I may be naive to draw that conclusion. Now I'm going to have to think back on mistakes I've made and consider that I've not been forgiven whether the person said so or not. That's pretty depressing, but if I'm living in a dreamworld I suppose it's better to know.



Handa Rei
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28 May 2023, 10:41 am

mharrington85 wrote:
If we all make mistakes, why does society frown upon mistakes?


I would say it's because society prefers order. Mistakes are disruptive to that order. They're a kind of fracture in the state of "going smoothly". People would rather not have to set things right or deal with the consequences of a mistake when they could, ideally, just have everything go smoothly.

Kind of makes me think that's part of why autism is considered so aberrant. Being unable to read social cues or behave in a socially acceptable manner, for example, is disruptive to that order too. When faced with such a divergent person people probably feel a bit of dissonance and don't quite know what to do. It's an anomaly.



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28 May 2023, 12:57 pm

I suppose it depends on the mistake. Some mistakes are easily forgivable and understood, while other mistakes can be maddening.


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Fenn
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29 May 2023, 10:52 am

I guess what may be important here is that mistakes can be big or little. It is also important to realize that OP was probably criticized or punished for a mistake and it hurt. Perhaps this has happened often. It may be confusing to know why people treat you the way they do. One question is can you change the way people treat you, or at least influence it. Changing people or influencing people can be difficult - sometimes it is not possible - other times it is. It can also make sense to ask “what can I do to change myself?” Sometimes it can be difficult to change one’s self too.

When I make a mistake I may think and feel certain things about it. If I misspell a word on a school assignment I may think it is no big deal. My teacher may not agree and put red marks on my paper.

This happed to me a lot when I was in school. I am now 55 years old and I still make spelling mistakes. Often I didn’t even notice I had made a mistake until I got the red mark. When I make a mistake there are some ways I can react. I can minimize it - make less of it than I really should. I can exaggerate it and make more of it than I should. Or I can “right size” it. I can ask for or seek forgiveness. I can try to fix it (sometimes called making reparations, “making repairs” or “mending fences”). I can try to shift the blame, point fingers. I can try to learn from my mistake so I won’t do it again. I can even start to think “I am no good”, “I AM a mistake”.

When I was a small boy I was often clumsy at the dinner table. Sometimes I would spill my glass of milk. My mother would criticize me loudly. I would cry. My mother would clean up the mess. I felt awful.

When I became a parent, I remembered that feeling. When my kids would spill milk I wouldn’t yell. Instead I would say as calmly as I could: “What do we do when we make a mess? . . . We clean it up!” Then I would try and teach the best way to clean up the mess. We would clean it up together.



Everyone Makes Mistakes Lyrics (as sung by Big Bird)
[Verse 1]
I've a special secret children ought to know
It's about the little mistakes you make as you begin to grow
If you make a mistake, you shouldn't start to cry
Mistakes are not so bad, and here is why

[Chorus]
Oh everyone makes mistakes
Oh, yes they do
Your sister and your brother and your dad and mother too
Big people, small people, matter of fact, all people
Everyone makes mistakes, so why can't you?


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nick007
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05 Jun 2023, 9:46 am

IsabellaLinton wrote:
Well then, I guess I'm a pushover. I mean that sincerely. Maybe I've screwed up throughout my life. I tend to forgive people very easily because I don't like the heaviness of being burdened by resentment. It feels better for me to forgive in most instances, even if it's a difficult process. The way I see it, life's too short to carry animosity toward people. I already have enough emotional baggage as it is. If I need to fire someone because they don't follow company policies or they make a big error that costs the company money, I'll fire them. That doesn't mean I'll harbour a grudge or hold it against them personally. It's like, if my child made a mistake and stuck their finger in a light socket I'd correct them and stop them or possibly even "punish" them briefly, but I'd still consider it a learning opportunity. I wouldn't refuse to forgive them. I was taught the golden rule and I treat people the way I want to be treated.

That being said, based on responses here it seems other people don't have the same philosophy as mine. Perhaps there are people in the world who don't forgive me for mistakes. I always assumed that people do, but it seems I may be naive to draw that conclusion. Now I'm going to have to think back on mistakes I've made and consider that I've not been forgiven whether the person said so or not. That's pretty depressing, but if I'm living in a dreamworld I suppose it's better to know.
I think this is one of those things that could vary a lot by area & the person's place on the social totem-pole so to speak. In the US the people in power tend to get praised & rewarded for correcting mistakes that they intentionally made. Or the people in power do nothing to try & correct their mistakes & they are never held accountable. Look at what the politicians & celebs can get away with. Meanwhile the little people can never do enough to make amends for mistakes that were extremely minor & very easy to make.

I know very well that nobody is perfect & everybody makes mistakes. I readily admit that I have waaay more than my fair share of issues, problems, & faults & I have made quite a lot of various mistakes throughout my life. However I also want to do right by others or at the very least not cause problems for others. Despite what some people would believe, I do feel bad when I realize that I screwed up & it upset someone or made things worse for them somehow. I've gotten away with some things I feel very bad about because I know I hurt someone &/or it caused lots of problems for my parents & such. On the flip-side I've also been blamed & punished for things that seemed very trivial to me & looking back rite now I still don't understand why others had such a huge problem. It seems to me like I was sometimes something of a scapegoat but other times people were exhausted & clueless about what to do with me. I really wish things were a bit fairer but I know the best I can realistically do is to try & not cause problems & try to learn from my mistakes & then move on.


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06 Jun 2023, 12:51 pm

When my son was just taller than the side table he loved to open and close the drawer. I told him “no” (a word he knew). I was worried he would hurt his fingers, shut them in the drawer. I would carefully close the drawer. Once he was playing with the drawer and I told him “no”. He caught his fingers in the drawer. He cried. Then he remembered.

Another time my daughter was old enough to help roll newspaper into paper logs and light a match. I instructed her on safety. I told her the sliding glass doors on fireplace. I corrected her over and over again when she would make mistakes. We got the fire going. I went to the kitchen to wash my sooty hands. She shouted in pain and started to cry. She had touched the hot glass. It didn’t look hot. I had told it would get hot. Then we washed the red fingertip with cold water. I told her it would heal in a fee weeks.
Then she learned.

A third time. My oldest son (now much taller) had just earned his driver’s license. He was alone in the car. He got to an unfamiliar corner with a stop sign one way but no stop sign for the cross street. He stopped at the sign but didn’t look both ways carefully enough. I had often told him to br careful at stop signs. I had said if he wasn’t more careful he might get hit. He pulled out and a fast car drove into him. Airbags opened he was not injured. The car was totaled. Then we sent him to professional driver’s education. We convinced him to try medication for ADHD (he had been diagnosed a few years earlier). Then he learned.

Sometimes when people criticize you for making mistakes it is to save you trouble and pain later. It may not seem like it, but if you learn from the criticism it may save you trouble or pain later. Sometimes you don’t learn until the pain happens - but sometimes you learn before the pain.

In the first two cases the pain was small. In the third case it could have been deadly.


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06 Jun 2023, 1:38 pm

Fenn wrote:
Sometimes when people criticize you for making mistakes it is to save you trouble and pain later. It may not seem like it, but if you learn from the criticism it may save you trouble or pain later. Sometimes you don’t learn until the pain happens - but sometimes you learn before the pain.

In the first two cases the pain was small. In the third case it could have been deadly.
I'm sure your a great parent Fenn because you try to explain why instead of just criticizing & punishing. Unfortunately not all parents nor authority figures do that. When I was in elementary school sometimes my teachers would tell students to do something or not do something & if a student questioned why the teacher would respond "because I said so" :roll: I sometimes screwed up when I was trying to comply because I misunderstood due to autistic literal black & white thinking or there was some unwritten rules that were not explained to me & my teachers sometimes assumed I was intentionally trying to cause problems & pushed me without explaining things. Punishment without explanation is NOT actually teaching except teaching me to distrust & fear authority figures :wall: It's even worse when some of my classmates were not in trouble for doing or not doing the same things as me. I had a bad rep so my teachers & principles were biased against me when others were given the benefit of the doubt & automatically believed over me.


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https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ru ... cquisition