Everyone makes mistakes

By Simon Wright (Personal Piece)

THE gun goes off twice to indicate a false start and shock sweeps through the world.  The commentators scream in disbelief, millions of television viewers around the globe are left stunned into silence and over 60,000 spectators in the Daegu stadium in South Korea can’t quite believe what they have just seen.  The unflappable, likeable, cool Jamaican athlete Usain Bolt has just false started by miles.  The men’s 100m, expected to be a case of how fast Bolt will run has just been blown wide open.  Under the new, tight IAAF regulations, Bolt is disqualified.  He rips his Jamaican shirt off his torso, probably thinking why did I do that?  This incident alone yesterday just shows the point that everyone makes mistakes.

     Some people in life will claim that they’ve done nothing wrong, have no regrets in life and think they are absolutely perfect.  Hello, wake up and smell the coffee!!  Everyone has made an error of judgement before, no matter how big or small it is.  It’s life, ‘Pobody’s Nerfect!’

    

Mistakes can vary in sizes and form.  Here is a list of several potential examples;

• Someone making a bad career choice.  For example, thinking you can be a top chef and wreck Jamie Olivier’s career, only to realise that you can’t even cook microwave pizza and would never succeed in running a top London restaurant.  Oops!
• A drunken one-night stand, which many have probably done over the years.  Yes, it probably feels great when you have consumed gallons of tasty alcohol, but the next morning, it is bound to be a massive regret.  Plus, if you are in a secure relationship, the consequences are likely to be far more severe.  What were you thinking!
• Deciding to install a popular computer programme to continue competing with the technological times.  Hours later, your laptop simply won’t load up and nothing is backed up either.  Oh why oh why did I do that, I’m an idiot!
• As a football manager, making a bold tactical gamble to win a game, which you end up losing.  Don’t rub your hair furiously like Arsene Wenger!  Be a man and own up to your mistakes via the press.  Real-life or on Football Manager.  Yes, I totally lost the plot there!
• Getting home from the supermarket, unpack your shopping and think, oh nuts, I forgot to buy the crucial ingredient for dinner tonight.  With no money left, that chicken curry isn’t going to taste right now.  Don’t bother with Come Dine with me then, unless you want to be embarrassed.
• Getting out of your car, and putting the wrong type of petrol in!  Ah damn it; I knew it should have been unleaded fuel, not stupid diesel!  Oh no, that Mercedes car is going to pay for my clumsiness. 

Okay, it’s time to open up my closet of some of the daft errors/mistakes I’ve made down the years.  Those who know me must think I’m just an accident waiting to happen.

• Live streaming on illegal websites.  I know it’s dodgy, but when you begin, you think; ‘Ah, no problem, life’s all good.’  Then, when you check your latest anti-virus scan (like I did in April this year) and locate 272 potential deadly viruses, you realise, I made things far too critical.  I’ve learnt my lesson from that, but unfortunately – my current laptop probably will never recover from its previous healthy state.
• Aged 11 on my first foreign holiday in Lanzarote.  It’s December 30 and I see a Virtual Striker football machine.  Time to see if I can play for Brazil haha!  I start walking towards the games room, without realising there are a pair of glass doors in the way.  Ouch! That hurt and it did!  I tried brandy to cure the pain moments later.  Well, it eased the pain but then, I threw up at breakfast the next morning.  One alcoholic drink I must stay away from in future.
• I got mediocre AS level results, and saw the opportunity to go on a BTEC National Diploma Media Production course at Milton Keynes College.  Rather than go for it, I dither about it and by the time I want to go there, all places on the year’s course has gone.  I had to stick it out for another year at Radcliffe Secondary School, in the sixth form!  Wasn’t my smartest move, but luckily, it all turned out good and if I had gone a year earlier, I won’t have met my amazing friends on my journalism course at the University of Northampton.  Remember to put your career choices first before friend preference everybody!
• Saying things in the heat of the moment, when you think; ‘I’m right and you’re wrong, shut the #### up, I’m talking sense!’  Moments later, you think; ‘Why did I say that?’ and are forced to make a grovelling apology to the friend/colleague you just insulted.  It has happened to me time and again and is probably the one mistake I constantly make.  Fortunately, after another unsavoury incident earlier this year, I have managed to control this issue far greater.

     Of course, when you make a mistake, you must learn from the error of your ways and not do it again.    Like I said, no-one is perfect, we’ve all slipped up and we just have to accept the mistakes we’ve made and learn from them.  If you do, we become better people.  As we’ve seen from Usain Bolt in the last 24 hours and my own collection, hold your hands up and come back stronger.  It makes you stronger people.