The One Mistake That Counts

Have you heard a story about a teacher filling responses for 10 mathematical questions? He is one bright and young teacher in an international high school. He wrote nine correct responses and only one wrong answer. All students in the class were laughing and mocking him. In the end of the class session, the teacher said that he was doing it on purpose. He wanted his students to understand that the world will sometimes see you as such. You can be good at doing lots of things. You can be young, smart and powerful. You can be the genius of your class. But you will always have the one mistake that counts. The one mistake which people sees and they generalize you from it. You need to understand so that you can be prepared. You must be someone accepting that people and yourself are not perfect, nobody does. This one mistake that others see will remind us not to do the same to others.

FIRST CASE. I have heard also a story of a father willing to do everything to make his family happy. He worked so hard days and night to make a better living for his wife and two beautiful daughters. He did everything right. He climbed up his career path. He finally earns good salary, big house, and expensive cars. He pays tuitions for both of his daughter. One day, he has been asked by his boss to accompany a client from his office. The client was a beautiful lady. As head of commercial department, he was obliged to satisfy his guest after dealing a great project. They went to a café and start to drink. Eventually, he is only human. He was spilling his heart out to the lady, complaining how he must support his family and he did not have his own time. Drinks after drinks, finally, the guy fell into the lap of the lady. It was a big mistake. He did it once, but since, his daughters hate him so much. The wife can forgive him though. She was trying to rationalize that the husband has been creating 9 good lives for her and their daughters. He made that one mistake, but in pain, she tried to accept it as it is.

We can imagine human actions as white shirt. You can easily spot the smudge or stain even though it is just a small one. Suddenly, you focus to that smudge and forget that most of the shirt is clean.

SECOND CASE. I have heard equally the story of one group leader and fifteen staffs. The group leader was a great person, very intuitive, smart and likeable. He was leading an international project for his office. His boss demanded a great result from it and that it would benefit the company. He did what he can do best. His team was working on a great rime. All the preparation for that international project was perfect. He prepared every need perfectly. However, on the D-day, as tiredness was coming to him, he forgot to brief his team and the project went imperfect. Among 10 tasks, he failed in one task, even this is an unimportant one. But the boss saw this as humiliation. He ravaged the group leader and his team. The boss was blinded with the anger and cannot see good things they have done. They managed to carry the difficult and impossible project ever done by this company. At the end of the year, due to amounts of pressure, the group leader was signed out from the company. The boss realized that he made a huge mistake even bigger than the group leader was.

People are a rational human being. They see only to something different. We can imagine human actions as white shirt. You can easily spot the smudge or stain even though it is just a small one. Suddenly, you focus to that smudge and forget that most of the shirt is clean. If you cannot control the perspective of seeing this problem, you will be a negative person. You can only see the bad side of people and you don’t want to see the good others do.

From the FIRST CASE, we understand that the husband did a very bad thing. The one that he should never do but he did. We can learn that his wife forgive him. Maybe this is not a god example but in life, such condition sometimes happens. We understand that family support’s is everything. Eventually, his family can accept his mistake and they should be living happily as they could. From the SECOND CASE, we understand that human error is not an impossible thing. It could happen to any of us and being disrespected for it or even despised because of it. The message is that we should see the problem from different perspective. Take it, digest it, and repair it if it is repairable. If not, take it, digest it, and move on. We have so many changes in the future to do better and we can be better.