Saturday, October 4, 2008

why pencils have erasers.

I hate making mistakes. Well duh, nobody likes making mistakes, silly. No. I DESPISE it. Probably because I also really hate being wrong and looking stupid, which are two things usually brought together by making mistakes.

I would rather not give an answer in class than give a wrong answer. Seriously. Even if there's a 99% chance the answer is actually right, I won't give it because I fear that 1% that the professor's going to tell me I'm wrong. Because, even though I acknowledge this isn't true, my brain equates a wrong answer with stupidity. I am so much more comfortable saying "umm... I'm not sure."

Mistakes that affect other people are the absolute worst. Why? I'm a people-pleaser. I go out of my way in most situations to make others happy. Sometimes I put that in front of my own priorities (not in an out of control way, but for example, after sleeping in late one Sunday I chose to go shopping for gifts for The Boy's birthday instead of doing work that really needed to be done). Happy people make me happy.

So. When it came to my attention the other day that I committed quite the Social Blunder, it stung. Big time. I felt silly for my actions, sorry that people involved were upset and frustrated, and just annoyed at myself for not realizing all of this. I was equally upset that I hadn't even given all of it a second thought, that I assumed everything was fine.

As much as happy people make me happy, hurt people make me sad. Especially if it's partially or completely my fault. It was hard for me to accept this and move on because it was in the past and I was unaware of the situation as it was unfolding. So all I can really do now is apologize and move on.

So I'm sorry. Really sorry.

2 comments:

EP said...

I know how you feel because I do the exact same thing. I'm OK being wrong when asked a question, but hurting other people because of my mistakes? I feel absolutley horrible. And I dwell on it, too, which makes it even worse.

Adam said...

Social blunders are the worst, especially when you don't find out you made them until some time after the fact. I get so upset when people tell me that I came off in a certain way at a certain time... I tend to dwell on those things. I dunno. I guess I care about what people think... how people view me. I know people say you shouldn't, but I dunno... I think it's connected with caring about people. If you care about people, you don't want them to think poorly of you.