Mistakes

This word has been tossed around a lot lately. It would seem that immediately after the 'teenage' is over almost everyone decides to introspect and think about all the apparently stupid mistakes that they have made in the last few years. So, I would say around the age of 22-25 yrs (?) is when we try to define 'me' based on these mistakes and of course their solution that we have gotten to (somehow). I wouldn't say there aren't any other things, but I would think this to be one of the weighted factors. The funny part, for me at least, is that you never care about it before or during the teens nor do I think that one would care after say age 25- 27 yrs. But somehow it seems important to care about because depending the how you handle it will define what you become later. Even then I am still not completely sure if 'what you are' is an active process or something that happens passively. So lets assume that it is active for the most part (otherwise there is no point in talking about this, is there?).

As I said earlier, I thought about writing this because of 3 reasons, its almost 2 years since I have written anything after my 'controversial' start (;-)), I have been hearing it a lot (first sentence!) and I have not much to do on a nice cold Sunday afternoon. I would also like to tell everyone that all the characters and their experiences are partially fictional and almost do not bare resemblance to you. 


Mistake, an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc. As the definition suggests it comes it all sorts of forms. Oh, another thing, last time around I used references from Dil Chahta Hai. This time  I am thinking of using things from Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. :) (I find this funny!) Back to the main topic, the forms of mistakes- action, Imran having an affair with Arjun's girl, calculation, Kabir's decision of going ahead with the wedding thinking sooner or later he will be marrying Natasha, opinion, Kabir thinking that his biological father would repent for his mistake, or judgement, Natashi in thinking that Kabir proposed to her when he was just showing the ring to her. But for us lesser, non-fictional characters there are even smaller (qualitative) things which matter a lot. But more or less we can classify them in the given categories. For the more common people most of these mistakes revolve around relationships with our parents and friends, our interpretation of the things out of our monkeysphere, your successful/ unsuccessful experiences with your significant other (assuming you have or had one) and maybe god. Since all of these can take a lot of different forms there is no point talking about them.



What I am interested in is the cause of these 'mistakes'.

It has been shown that some of the most important developmentally significant changes in the brain occur during this period. This is supposed to lead to better evaluation of risks and rewards, as well as improved control over impulses. This development plays an important role in determining rewards and punishments and processing emotional experience and social information. However it also makes people more emotional and more responsive to rewards and stress. The corresponding increase in emotional variability also can increase vulnerability. Scientifically speaking, this seems to be the root cause. However, according to me, this is not where the problem lies. What complicates things is what ensued. The understanding of the consequences, the fear of facing it, inability to achieve certain goal, a scar that can never be healed, repenting  all the time that was lost and wasted. close ties that were permanently broken and many such things. 

After the teens when you are comparatively more stable emotionally and are going over over all these things, it finally comes down to two choices, you either run from it or you learn from it. I agree that it is much easy to say it because each mistake you make brings a bag load of pain with it which makes the learning more and more difficult while the running a lot easier. But the truth remains you cannot go back and change it so why waste time brooding over it. Even then running away would be an even worse thing to do. 


Just go back in time in think about it again. Were they really mistakes? If you think about it, at that moment that was the 'mistake' that made you smile. That is what you thought was the right for you and so however hard you try to make your self understand, if you had the chance of reliving it (considering you dont know what is going to happen afterwards, otherwise it would be cheating!) you would most probably do the same thing. Generalizing it, whatever the mistake is and however big it may seem to you, stop running away! But learn from it and try (try) not to repeat it. 


Another aspect of this self-scrutiny is that few/ many people learn from their mistakes but this makes them over-self-confident. I still think they regret all the mistakes yet they take pride in the way they handled it. I have a little hard time understanding this. Weren't you the same person who made the stupid mistake? So, learning from it has just got you where you were before committing the mistake! Maybe a little higher because now you have a purse full of experience. But you also have to carry the weight of it. Just imagine, you made these mistakes in a situation where you had no responsibilities, you would get any with many things just cause you are a teen, you have a lot of visible/ invisible people taking care of you (however hard you may try to convince they are not, they are always there), and in the 1st 20 yrs of your life when you have all the enthusiasm to do things. Now imagine doing any such mistake during the next 40-60 yrs of your life. :) Being too proud makes you complacent.Repeat the mistake and you are in a deeper trench than you could ever imagine. Thought to some extent I would still agree it feels nice to think about how you conquered something so 'big' (it is big only for you). ;-)


Most things differ from for person to person, is something that I have reserved acceptance of. So, like with most other things, I will try to generalize everything. I know a lot of people who wouldn't agree with this, but I don't think it is wrong so I'll still do it. :-p I always like to think that however worse your situation may seem, there are people who have been through worse and are still standing tall. Understanding this, what right do you have about cribbing or being super proud of the mistakes you have made and how you handles them!? 


(ZNMD was a failed attempt! :-p couldn't connect it anywhere! :-D)


I would have liked a nice strong conclusion for this. But however hard I try, I would still want to change some the mistakes that I have made which maybe as small as giving 30 min of my day to a person I really cared about which now, I simply cannot. So, the only conclusion for me is to try not to let that happen again. 


Another important thing, for a lot of time I was thinking about how awesome I was that I could think of such 'deep' things and could come up with such logic. Fortunately/ unfortunately this glass of thoughts was shattered pretty quickly :-p. I am pretty sure almost everyone thinks the same way. Well it seems, to even think of such thing as the 'unique' person to come up with this was a big mistake.