What Is A Mistake?

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In the dictionary, the word Lost comes before Misery, Sadness and Pain – but if your curious eyes look much closer at the dictionary, the word Lost is also on the same page as another word:

Learning.

The words Lost and Learning often go together in any meaningful journey that involves self-discovery and self-exploration, as we seek wisdom and knowledge for our future happiness.

As ancient humans discovered and explored different lands near oceans and mountains, their anxious fingers - but courageous eyes - began to design a very important piece of paper that would influence and inspire art, literature, music and even science throughout our world’s history.

Maps.

When humans feel lost in our world, they just have to create a map.

In the dictionary, the word Map is both a noun and a verb.
1. As a noun, a Map is “a diagrammatic representation of an area of land or sea showing physical features, cities and roads.”
2. As a verb, to Map is “to sketch and plan potential routes for a particular journey, especially a journey that may seem difficult and arduous.”

Throughout our world’s history, maps have been very crucial for humans as they encountered other humans in new lands and new cultures that would bring different perspectives about the world. The oldest known maps in the world are preserved on Babylonian clay tablets that date back to 2300 BC. The Theatrum Orbis Terrarum – also known as the Theatre of the World – is often considered to be the world’s very first atlas, designed by European cartographer named Abraham Ortelius who printed this gorgeous map around 1570. Across our modern world, various maps have now become digitized into different programs and apps such as Google Maps, which aggregates navigational data from extraterrestrial satellites that orbit the Earth.

How do you design a map? To design our own map on a table, if we ever stood together inside a library, we just have to remember the two main elements that belong on every map:
1. Step One - Determining Location: The locations of certain places on Earth can only be understood by looking at their direction or distance from another place. Longitude focuses on East and West, while Latitude concentrates on North and South. To create a map that would lead to a safe and happy journey for you, you should never underestimate the amount of time and energy that you must expend into reaching a particular destination. Many people often become tired and exhausted before they even finish their journey because they failed to gauge the right distance between point A and point B.
2. Step Two – Measuring Scale and Projection: When cartographers begin to design their maps, the biggest problem that they normally face is the potential errors that might occur if they inaccurately distort the mathematical projections between different locations on the map – such as distance, area and shape. When you walk into the wilderness, and you stand in the middle of the forest with a map in your hands, your map might actually lead you to tremendous danger if your map’s mathematical projections are proven to be incorrect. While your inaccurate map might say that a certain forest is only “a short walk away from the city” – that forest might actually be far more enormous than your map has led you to believe, and sooner or later, you might find yourself screaming for help where no one can hear you!

In our own lives, we might have underestimated the amount of time and energy to walk away from our own mistakes –

but if we concentrate more on humility and less on our pride, every mistake can actually become just another step in our journey of self-discovery, as Wisdom and Knowledge begin to lead us down new paths and new roads to happiness.

What Is a Mistake?
In the dictionary, the word Mistake is defined as “an action or judgment that is misguided and wrong.” In the English language, the word Mistake began to emerge during the 1400s and comes from Old Norse mistaka which mean “take in error; miscarry.” The thesaurus has different synonyms for the word Mistake such as Error, Flaw, Weakness and Miscalculation.

When children become young adults, Mistakes are normal. Mistakes happen in every single human’s life as different people strive for perfection in our society. With Self-Love and Self-Patience, Mistakes often teach us very important lessons about life – such as Wisdom, Humility and Compassion.

Mistakes often come from three different emotions:

1. Ignorance (from Past Mistakes):
In the dictionary, the word Ignorance is defined as “lacking knowledge or awareness.”

To learn from Ignorance that might have caused certain mistakes in your life, you should answer important questions like “Why is remaining open-minded and curious about different perspectives far more beneficial to my conscience than continuing to act narrow-minded and afraid around new experiences?”

2. Self-Doubt (during Current Problems):
In the dictionary, the word Self-Doubt is defined as “lack of confidence in oneself and one’s abilities.”

To learn from Self-Doubt that might have caused certain mistakes in your life, you should answer important questions like “When I remember my own values and principles about life, why do Self-Confidence and Self-Trust actually cause less mistakes to happen in my life?”

3. Pride (for Future Goals):
In the dictionary, the word Pride is defined as “a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit; a feeling that you are more important or better than other people.”

To learn from Pride that might have caused certain mistakes in your life, you should answer important questions such as “What happens to my heart when I continue to act like I am better than most people who walk on this planet? What will happen to my conscience (to my own humanity) if I permanently let Arrogance linger in my mind?”

Be careful.

A man who can never tolerate other people’s mistakes can actually never tolerate his own.

A woman who can never tolerate other people’s mistakes can actually never tolerate her own.

Tell me, whatever happened to your heart? There is always hope for your heart – even if your current situation looks grim and scary. As long as you continue to believe in yourself, the light in your heart will continue to shine.

You just have to remember that you still have tremendous worth as a human, even after you have made so many mistakes, because those mistakes never indicate flaws of character in your own conscience.

Your mistakes only indicate your steps of progress – the different lessons that you have learned on your journey of self-discovery.

I sound like a really bad influence here, but keep making more mistakes!

After all, more mistakes simply mean more lessons.