A few nights ago I had a dream about making errors! In the dream I was visited by a person whom I admired for probably 40 years. He is deceased within the last few years but he remains in my mind a model of integrity and servant leadership. In the dream visit, he was comforting me about making errors. For some reason or other I was fretting over mistakes I had made in my life. His basic comfort advice was that everyone makes errors! I guess the value of the errors must be that you learn from them and strive to avoid those errors in the future. In spite of that comfort, I am sure that I, along with all others will be making errors and mistakes in the future. Perfection is beyond our means but striving for that goal is a worthy endeavor. Minimizing our residual errors keeps us alert.
I have since thought about applying the teaching I received from this dream. Since this is the ski season, I am reflecting on the errors I might make on any given ski day. Probably the biggest thing I have to watch for in my senior years is the mistake to push myself beyond the level of my ability to cope with the conditions of the day. There is wisdom in withdrawing from the scene when the risk is not worth the reward. So isn't that true about life in general? One must know what a worthy risk is and recognize that there are errors that are so unforgiving that there is no recovery. This past Sunday I had my second Covid vaccination shot. I'm looking forward to so-called maximum immunity after a couple of weeks. Even then I will continue all approved safe practices to prevent the spread of the disease. This is no time to tempt fate by making an error that I can't recover from.
A final thought. Since making errors is a given for everyone, I need to be as forgiving of others whose errors negatively effect me.
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