Sometimes we make mistakes....sometimes we fail the test. Some of our mistakes are pretty small. Some of them are really big.

Sometimes, when we make mistakes, we get more than a little upset, and we start worrying about what we're going to do. We almost work ourselves up to a panic.We bite our lips, we fret and worry and frown.

One day, worrying about a particularly monster mistake, I suddenly said to myself, "So What?" That halted me in my tracks. "So what? You made a mistake...doing dumb things is a part of being human. It's a part of learning." I pondered that for a moment, as the light began to dawn. "You made a mistake. Next time, you'll know better, right? You won't make the same mistake. You've learned from this mess." I walked along for a bit longer, turning the thought over and over in my mind. "I really don't need to worry about this. It is in the past, after all. And I can't change the past. I can only influence the future. But I can control the present. I should be living in the present, not worrying about past mistakes. I should be doing what I can with the here and now?"

In this intense discussion with myself(of which I will spare you the gory details) I came to realize that mistakes are a part of life. They are a part of growing up and learning and becoming. We will always make mistakes. The important thing is to make sure we learn from them, and to make sure we don't dwell on them. Dwelling on our mistakes too much will just send us all into a deep blue funk.

What we can do is accept our mistakes with a smile, and move on, ready to do better! We know what we did wrong, and next time, we can do something different! Because we know what doesn't work.

So, now when I make a mistake. I wince a little, then shrug my shoulders. "Well...that was silly." I say to myself. "But next time, I'll know what to do right!"

So when you break that china plate, or fail that test...don't let it get you down. Just do better next time, right?