Mistakes & Myths

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. --George Bernard Shaw

Does anyone else subscribe to the Oprah Magazine daily e-mail?  Please say you do, I need to feel some community in my in-adequateness.  I subscribed years ago, when Oprah still had her talk show.  I was an occasional watcher.  I like her interview style, and she really does like a lot of cool stuff, so the "Favorite Things" shows always sucked me in hard.  Anyway, each day I get an e-mail about "Living My Best Life", no harm in trying to be the best me I can be, right?  Life coaching and guidance through the inbox.  Good stuff.  Lately most of the titles contain the word "mistakes" or "myths".

The Six  Hair Mistakes (hint: quit talking to your hairdresser, you are compromising your hairstyle)

The Ten Biggest Relationship Mistakes (oddly sharing to many common interests, and not sharing common interests are both no-nos)

The Biggest Mistakes Women Make When Dieting (Creating too much of a calorie deficit through under eating and over exercising.)

5 Diet Myths Making You Gain Weights (as told by Dr. Oz...do not even get me started) He restates the above "diet mistake" and you need to quit diet soda.

4 Myths About Anti-Depressants (also by Oz) (they are not "happy pills")

So this is the stuff that greets me every morning in my inbox.  All the myths I am believing and mistakes I am making.  It becomes a game to see what I am doing right.  In reading all the myths and mistakes, which are meant to help guide one to being better, or making better choices, a person can, at the least, get rather confused, and at the worst, start feeling like a colossal hot mess.

Lately, I have started to think making mistakes is fine. Is it really so bad to believe in myths?  As a kid I pretty damn happy believing in Santa and the Tooth-fairy.  Loot rolled in.  Life was good.  Granted, the Santa myth is rather harmless, and harboring other false beliefs can be more dangerous.  I guess the whole thing with "Myth Lists" is you sometimes feel like a dummy for not realizing you were off the mark.  However, mistakes are not bad.  Mistakes are some of life's best teachers.

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out. --Benjamin Franklin

 As a mother of a teen daughter I am very guilty of trying to keep her from making mistakes.  (I admit I am a huge hypocrite, and she knows it)  Sure, there are some things that  through sharing stories can help teach and mold.  I certainly do not want her to learn not to drink and drive by getting in a horrific crash.  I do not want her to OD and go to rehab to learn that drugs are dangerous.  The big mistakes I am perfectly willing to share news articles, and other sources to help impress that these are mistakes she does not even want to dabble with.  It is the smaller, but still painful, stuff  that I struggle to not lecture upon.  Most of this involves relationships. Things like, putting to much caring and trust in people that will not reciprocate.  Liking someone who does not even have a inkling of clue how awesome she is as a person.  Believing the myths someone tells to get what they want.  Believing the myth that it does not matter. I never want her to have her heart broken.  I want her to never make mistakes that will hurt.  When I write that I see how absurd it sounds.  Mistakes do hurt.  Some hurt worse than others.  Some myths, like Santa, are harmless, and some are far more insidious.
 
I mock the Oprah Magazine site for sending me lists of mistakes not to make, and myths not to believe so I can I have my "best life".  As if you can really "learn life" from reading an article, or attending a lecture. All the while, I am doing the same thing.  I want to lecture and curate the perfect easy, breezy high school experience for my daughter.  Perhaps that is the big myth I need dispelled.  High school is neither easy, or breezy.  It is a bunch of confused half-adult, half-children wandering about trying to figure out what the heck is happening to them. I just happen to have a very serious interest in only one of these half & half creatures.  I want to send her a list of mistakes not make, and myths to disregard.  I want her to read each bit of information and wisdom as if it were heaven sent.  It is not.  It is just from a person was there, made mistakes, got hurt, got up, and did better the next time.  I would not give up any of it because it helped me become wise.  However, now I have to watch one of the most important people in my life make mistakes, get hurt, get up, and do better the next time.  I need to let her become wise.  You can not give wisdom, you have to earn it.

And no lists or articles in the world could have ever, even remotely, prepared me for this.