“Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and wrong. Sometime in your life, you will have been all of these.” – Buddha
The other day at work, I jumped in to help my colleagues with a project to create order from a bunch of data. In the course of an afternoon, we had so many emails, spreadsheets and versions flying around that my inbox was overflowing. Finally at one point I stated to a colleague that I didn’t have the version he was talking about. He forwarded an email sent to me 2 hours earlier that had the version.
I was mortified. I hate that particular kind of mistake that could have been prevented by a more detailed search of what I already had. It triggered the most unkind voice in my head.
I’d really like to do this all perfectly but fortunately I’ve had many years to come to terms with the fact that I’m far from perfect and never will be. Also on the plus side, I’ve learned a technique from my meditation teacher to create some space when I bump up against this.
It’s simply to talk to myself as if it were a friend that had made the mistake. It’s pretty easy to realize that I wouldn’t chastise a friend who had done the same. I’d say things like:
“Oh, I’ve done that before. It’s frustrating.”
“At least you didn’t send it to the customer with the wrong data. You stayed curious and kept asking questions.”
“Missing one spreadsheet in twenty? Not a bad ratio!”
Several times I’ve heard the Biblical instruction “Love your neighbor as yourself” turned around to be “Love yourself as your neighbor.” There is a lot of wisdom in not only cultivating kindness to others but also ourselves.
(featured photo from Pexels)
Surprised By Joy 