When You Know...

 "I hate it when I mess up without knowing I'm making a mistake," I said to my boss in the early afternoon. 

"You haven't messed up. Nobody's messed up. These are just growing pains," he replied. 

They were kind words, but they were absolutely, blatantly untrue. Mistakes had been made - for years, apparently - and although I couldn't clearly remember, I was pretty sure the fault lay with me. Two years. Two years of invoicing a select few orders incorrectly - and I had no idea until a series of 10 bad... and then wearying... and then just dreadful days revealed a serious problem.

When I make a mistake in my personal life, I try to remember the lesson I learn, and then forget and let go of the depressed emotions that take over whenever I feel like I've failed. And this works pretty well, although there are a few moments in my life that I haven't moved on from and I still carry the ashamed and embarrassed emotions that came with those experiences. But I only remember those occasionally, so it's manageable. But in my work life... well that's another story. At work I find it nearly impossible to forget and let go because my boss will bring up past problems as "teaching moments". And he says it's just because they're good examples (unfortunately, he's right about that) and that there's no blame, judgement, or long lasting consequences of those mistakes (which is probably true to a degree), but regardless of what he might say, the repeated reminder of those mistakes brings up a turmoil of emotion - primarily shame and frustration. I've found it impossible to let go and move on. And so for the last 3.5 years, any mistake I've made on the job stays in my near-conscious mind ready to remind me of all the things I need to do so that I don't mess up again. Most of the time these memories come in waves that are manageable, but on occasion they pile up one against another as new mistakes are made (or discovered), and I find myself living in hellish misery. 

What kind of mistakes? Honestly, they're just innocent little blunders. The type of thing you might expect to occur when a 17 year old, with no prior experience, rises to a top position in the company in less than 3 months. I've heard it said that a certain number of mistakes are to be expected whenever anyone is learning anything new. That's supposed to mean it's okay if I've made some mistakes as it's all a part of the learning process. And yet, that thought does nothing to remove the anguish and depression I feel. I tell myself that "I just didn't know any better. I didn't know." But the part of me that now knows better tells the guilty part of me that I should have known. It should have been obvious if I'd only reasoned it through. Hindsight has 20/20 vision. And it's cruel.

And so by Monday of this week I was not doing well. I was dreading work like I never had before. The week before I'd discovered 4 customer orders that all had the same mistake in common. By Thursday I was pretty sure the worst of it was over, and so after a weekend of trying not to think, I made an effort to have a better day on Monday. After all, I was pretty sure that those 4 orders were the only ones messed up. Wrong. All my determination to have a good Monday fled when not half an hour into the work day, order number 5 revealed itself. At this point there was a part of me that just wanted to give up. I resigned myself to another hour long lecture from my boss as he reiterated everything he'd told me the week before. Hard as I tried, I just couldn't seem to get on top of my life again. 

By early afternoon I was in a rut. I stared unseeing at my computer trying to pull enough mental power into the pile of design work that needed to be completed. It was fruitless. I was miserable. As I stood to fill up my water bottle, hoping that a walk and a drink would help me recover somewhat, a quote came into my mind - a quote I hadn't thought about in many months: when we know better, we do better. 

When we know better, we do better. It spoke to the little voice in my head that was crying, "I just didn't know! Yes, something's gone wrong. We've lost some money, we could get in trouble if we don't figure this out, but I just didn't know!" But it was a voice that got shut up almost as soon as it spoke. After all, not knowing is simply no excuse for messing up. 

But when we know better, we do better. It didn't clear up the roiling emotions in my mind, but it did give me something to think about beside my misery. I still wasn't sure I believed it. I realized that I did hold a very strong belief about not making excuses for myself. And the excuse of not knowing, valid as it might be, was still an excuse. 

Late that night, I was procrastinating going to bed because as soon as I woke up it would be time to go to work again. I just felt like I couldn't handle another day of work. So instead of resting, I read a book. An interesting book filled with "sutras" or small statements that are taken out of context so that you start thinking about them in another light. I read one statement in that book, and it changed everything. 

"Jesus' words, 'Forgive them for they know not what they do," also apply to yourself."

... I was dumbfounded. I'd never read that passage of scripture in the way I read it that night. In Jesus' eyes, not knowing was a forgivable - easily forgivable offense. In Esther's eyes it was not. I realized that I am my cruelest judge, my harshest taskmaster, my own worst enemy. I had refused to forgive myself for not knowing everything. I suppose I didn't trust that when I knew better I would automatically do better. In some warped mental world I had formed a vicious cycle of rehashing past mistakes in an effort to get my present self to think of every contingency, every possible outcome. I tried to think from every angle, from every perspective, to account for every misunderstanding. And when I failed again because I still didn't have all the knowledge, I used it as fuel to show myself that I wasn't doing "better" enough. I needed to try harder. 

The moment I realized that Jesus Christ understood if I didn't know everything, that He was okay if I messed up because of my lack of knowledge, I easily let go of all the emotion I'd been holding for the last two weeks. It took mere moments to let that small voice inside me stand up and say, "I didn't know. And that's okay. Now I know. And I'll do better. I won't be perfect, but perfect isn't the requirement. I'll do better. Better than when I didn't know. Better than yesterday. I might still mess up, but I'll mess up less. Because I know better, I'll do better." With a healing breath in, I looked back at the memories that still carried raw emotion in my heart. With a healing breath out, I forgave myself for not knowing. 

If you can't forgive me for being oblivious and unknowledgeable sometimes, then just know that I'm sorry for any pain I might have caused. But I can forgive myself for not knowing what I to do or how to do it. So I'm moving on. I'm not perfect, but I'm doing better now."