How many mistakes I’ve made, how many wrong decisions.
There were decisions I was absolutely certain were right. They weren’t. There were people I trusted more than I should have, and others I didn’t trust enough. There were times when I stayed too long in situations I should have left, and others when I left too soon.
I spent time on things I wouldn’t give a second glance today. I defended decisions that didn’t deserve defending simply because they were mine. I stayed silent when I should have spoken, and spoke when it would have been wiser to stay silent.
I tried to hold on to relationships that had long since ended. Sometimes I lost good people because I was certain they would always be there. I made mistakes in business, in my judgment of people, and in my relationships, but perhaps most of all in my judgment of myself.
Some mistakes cost me money. Some cost me time. Some cost me years that no one can ever give back. Some cost me peace of mind. And some cost me far more than I would care to admit today.
And no, I am not grateful for every mistake.
That is one of those things that only sounds good once enough time has passed. There are decisions I still wish I had never made. Words I wish I had never spoken. People I wish I had understood better while they were still beside me.
But I did what I did.
And at some point, we have to stop bargaining with our own past.
We cannot go back and be wiser in a moment when we did not yet have the experience we have today. We cannot erase the consequences simply because we now understand them. All we can do is face them without excuses and acknowledge where we went wrong.
Stop looking for someone else to blame for every decision we made.
Apologize while there is still someone we can apologize to.
Repair what can still be repaired.
And learn not to repeat the same mistake under a different name.
Today, I am much less inclined to trust someone who claims to rarely make mistakes. I trust someone far more when they can look back and admit that they got something wrong, hurt someone, overestimated themselves, or failed to see what is now perfectly clear to them.
The years bring experience.
But maturity begins only when we stop rewriting our past to make ourselves right every time.
I have made many mistakes.
I will probably make more.
These days, I simply try to pay the price for each one only once.
Not over and over, for the rest of my life.
Reshid Dervishi