Monday, August 11, 2008 Wrong Misteak: Lessons of Wisdom By Henrylito D. Tacio Regarding Henry
NO, the word "misteak" in the title is intentional.
I know it, because my computer highlighted the word with a red line. Yes, every time I misspelled a word, there is that red line. But then, I am not perfect. As Alexander Pope once said, "To err is human?"
But sometimes, a human error may cost someone else's life.
In Georgia, a news dispatch released by the Associated Press said that an Atlanta suburban woman died while waiting for an ambulance that a 911 operator sent to the wrong address.
According to authorities, the victim called 911 for help because of difficulty in breathing.
But the 911 operator misheard the address and sent crews to Wells Street in Atlanta instead of to the victim's home on Wales Street in suburban Johns Creek.
The streets are more than 30 kilometers apart. The mistake caused a 25-minute delay in response. The victim died from a pulmonary embolism.
"Mistakes are a part of being human," author Al Franken wrote in 2002's Oh, The Things I Know. She said appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way.
Hugh White considers mistakes as "lessons of wisdom."
Every mistake has a reason. You can either accept the reasons and learn something positive from them, or you can turn them into excuses, and thereby allow them to defeat you.
The Daily Devotional explains, "Each excuse is a small defeat, and they can add up quickly. The best strategy is to avoid them. Explain yourself, but make no excuses. Listen to reason, but accept no excuses."
When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
In a taped interview with the GMA-7 show biz talk show "Startalk," Filipino actor Gabby Concepcion made his first sweeping, public apology to his former wife Sharon Cuneta. "I'm really very sorry for what I've done to you and what didn't turn out to be our future plans together," said the ex-heartthrob who left the Philippines for the United States after the 1994 Manila Film Festival scandal.
"I'm really very sorry for my mistakes to you, to the family or to anybody whom I've hurt along the way," he said in his message to Sharon, who is now married to Senator Francis Pangilinan.
"From the bottom of my heart, I'm really, really regretful," he said.
There are several reasons why we commit errors and blunders in life.˙ Maybe it is due to stress, to get even, or by accident.˙ In some instances, we make mistakes without knowing it.˙
For example, I saw my brother the other day chewing our sister for rearranging the books in his room. He had everything laid out to work on his project, but she thought it was messy and she wanted to help her brother. In the middle of his tirade, he caught himself and said, "I apologize. I'm just taking my frustrations out on you, and I know you meant to do well."
Sometimes, you can avoid mistakes by heeding the words of those who have experienced them already. Experience, they say, is the best teacher.
People who reach the age of 60 or more consider themselves old and won't work anymore. All they have to do is sit back and enjoy life.
But former Singapore Minister Lee Kuan Yew who retired at the age of 62 said, "If you do that you're making the biggest mistake of your life."
He explained, "After one month, or after two months, even if you go traveling with nothing to do, with no purpose in life, you will just degrade, you'll go to seed."
He further said, "The human being needs a challenge, and my advice to every person: Keep yourself interested, have a challenge. If you're not interested in the world and the world is not interested in you, the biggest punishment a man can receive is total isolation in a dungeon, black and complete withdrawal of all stimuli, that's real torture."
