Hannah Montana said it best "Nobody's perfect." And man, has this age of social media and lightning fast internet communication made us realize how imperfect we all are.
The pressure we place on people to be perfect is astounding. Just take the United Airlines incident, Tiger Woods, Hillary Clinton, and the government for example. We are so quick to jump on people and say "You are wrong", "You messed up" and "Shame on you." Everyone is quick to point the finger but slow to take responsibility. No one wants to take responsibility because the people who do are basically turned into Public Enemy Number One by the media and us.
How did we get like this? Why do we act like this? We're like piranhas at feeding time waiting for the one small fish that's dumb enough to try to leave the safety of home. I don't remember ever having been told in school that it was ok to make a mistake. That it was ok to get the question wrong on the test, that it was ok if I didn't know the answer. I mean that's why pencils have eraser's right, they aren't there for decoration. You know when you erase something on a piece of paper but the eraser is bad and it leaves this ugly gray and black smudge mark on the page? That's what life is like for people who make mistakes. We're made to feel like every mistake is a black smudge mark that will never come off. No matter how hard you try to erase it, it will always be there, always reminding you of what you did. And if you are lucky enough to remove it, someone will be waiting to remind you of what happened.
Think about the prison system for a minute. When somebody breaks the law there's a good chance that they'll be sent to prison. That is your punishment when you commit a crime, prison. Prison is where criminals can reflect on their past mistakes. In America, prison doesn't end when you are released back into the public. Good luck getting a job, financial aid to go to college, food stamps, health care, or housing. You want to overcome your mistakes and become a productive member of society, well good luck, because America has made it pretty much impossible to lead any kind of a life after prison.
Mistakes happen, things go wrong. We make the wrong choice, we turn the wrong way, we forget to stop at the red light, we steal, we lie, we cheat, and we kill. Bad things happen, we see bad things and we do bad things. We maybe stand by and let bad things happen. Or no matter how hard we try we can't stop it from happening. Recognize what happened, take responsibility, and do what you can to get past it. Stop being the person waiting with a pitchfork to roast the next person who makes a mistake. Stop telling your child or your student or your classmate that they have to get 100% on every single test. You know what I would like to see at every high school graduation: an award for the student who may not have gotten all A's, who may not have had perfect attendance or perfect behavior, who may have never won student of the month, but the student who worked their ass off despite all of that. "Everybody makes mistakes, everybody has those days", so let's do our best to help each other get past them.
