One of life’s certainties is that we’re going to make mistakes. Some will be big and some will be HUGE! (Or at least we’ll be certain that they were.) Most are just mistakes we make that we’ll learn from or not, appreciate or not and understand or not. We kid ourselves  into believing that all of these mistakes are somehow the spawn of ego and evil. No! One of the biggest things we forget is that we can make mistakes of the good as well! 

Sometimes we might not go far enough toward being benevolent and sometimes we might go too far. One thing’s for sure, it’s about time we start seeing and understanding the good parts about us and then make them more effective and more loving. 

Just imagine what kind of people we’d be and what kind of world we’d live in if we made most of our mistakes by  being too Kind, Loving, Empathetic, Honorable, Honest, Loyal, Charitable, Respectful, Responsible, Humble, Compassionate, Decent, Fair, Forgiving, Authentic, Courageous, Generous, Polite,  Optimistic, Reliable, Conscientious, Encouraging, Forgiving, Considerate and just downright Nice. Sure would be a lot different, huh?

So until we meet again over the next One Minute Blog, and Common Man’s Wisdom Podcast, let’s do this…  

Let’s sit down and write out on a piece of paper what we think our best qualities are. I mean all of them and don’t stop till the page looks pretty full!  Then, let’s do our best to make our best traits even better! Do your best to show others what a good trait looks like no matter what the situation is.   

Talk to your other half or your kids and your friends about it. Get them to do the same and then talk to each other about the good stuff that’s now going on in your life. 

You can even keep score at the end of each  day by underlining the traits that you exercised that day. Then at the end of a week or so, you might be surprised how many good traits you’re showing the rest of the world… and maybe how many you aren’t. 

So the next time you make a mistake, look at it and see what kind of mistake it was. Did it come from you being good or bad? Either way, maybe it’ll be easier to learn from it and then give yourself a break. After you do THAT, you can go back to that paper you filled full of your good traits and underline benevolent! 

Peace 

     ……Gregg