I won't be just another mistake

I don't really talk about movies all that much on this whole blog thing.

If I remember correctly I have talked about two, Hook and Eat, Pray, Love. Both of which star Julia Roberts. So it seems only fitting that the third movie I choose to talk about stars her too.

Mona Lisa Smile. Ever seen it? Julia Roberts is an Art History teacher at an all girls college and she has struggles, it gets a little scandalous (heads up), and it ends in an uplifting, fulfilling way. That is a horrible synopsis, but that is hardly the point of this whole thing. I'll get to that. Right now in fact.

One of the students says this:

"I know I have made mistakes, a ton. But I never make them twice."


Ever since hearing that I can't stop thinking about it. Because I know I have made mistakes, a ton. But I never make them twice. Okay, maybe sometimes I make them twice, maybe even hundreds of times. But that is not the point either. The point is, everyone makes mistakes. But it is not the mistake that defines us, it is where we choose to go after them that makes us who we are. How we choose to grow and what we choose to change as a result makes us the person we are.

There are a lot of things that define me, but my mistakes will never be one of them.

I don't know why it is so hard to forgive others, and probably ten times harder to forgive myself. But it's just one of those things you've gotta do, one of those things i've gotta do. Life is hard, so why would I choose to make it harder on myself or on others? Everyone makes mistakes, Miley Cyrus even sings so. In fact we all make a ton of mistakes. But that is not who we are.

We are not the lie we told.
We are not the gossip we spread.
We are not the source of hurt we caused someone.

As easy as it is to feel as such, we are not that. We are not defined by the mistakes we make. I think that is something I have to remind myself, probably more at this point of my life than ever. The second I define my worth by the amount of mistakes I make, well that is the second that I have sold my soul for 50 cents max.

Luckily I know better. I know that my mistakes are what make me better. Through learning and growing and accomplishing and achieving and apologizing and moving on, that is what defines me. The place I decide to go, well that is what gets me one step closer to where I want to be in the end.

I guess now is the time I step off my soap box and start following my own advice. It's just one of those things that is easier written than done. But i'm working on it. And I know the second I master it, well i'll probably be dead. But until then i'm going to try my very hardest to work it out. Because it may well be the difference between happiness, and well, not happiness.