Drive time for me is often reflection time. The other day, I was thinking about this habit I have. It shows up in two different places in my life—both when I am on the computer. The first is when I am entering in the password for my computer or a specific website. The other is when I misspell a word while I am typing.
In both of these circumstances, when I make a mistake, I go back and delete the whole thing. So, if I mess up my password, I will delete the whole field and start typing all over again. If I misspell a word, I will delete the entire word and then retype it again.
My kids have caught me doing this and said, “You don’t have to delete the whole thing, Dad!” Then, they tell me what I already know. I am aware that I can just click over and correct the one part that is wrong and move on. My kids tell me that this would be much quicker.
So, why do I delete all the stuff that is right when just one part is wrong?
For my password, I think I have a good reason to delete it and start over. In most fields, I cannot see what I am typing because each character is represented by a star or bullet shape. So, I am not always sure where I messed up. I can kind of tell, but I am not always sure.
Even more, I have tried to just correct one letter and hit “enter” and I received the dreaded message: “Incorrect password.” I hate that message. I want to be sure when I fix this, I get it completely right!
I have no idea why I delete the whole word when I make a simple spelling or typographical error. I could click on the mistake, change the one wrong thing, and move on. But, I do not do this. I erase the whole thing and start over.
It is interesting to me that we are often so much like this in our daily lives. We are doing something or working on something and we make one little mistake and feel the desire to throw away the whole thing. It seems almost natural to easily see our mistakes and miss the good that is already there.
An educator once took a marker and made a small dot in the middle of his dry-erase board. He asked the class, “What do you see?” The answer he repeatedly received was “A black dot.” Each probably was thinking something like, “You just drew a black dot on the board and now you want us to tell you what we see?”
Then, the instructor said, “How come none of you said you see all this white space?” He then identified that there is way more white space around the little dot than there is black. The lesson: We have trained ourselves to see little mistakes and errors and miss all the good around them!
We are so laser-focused on what is wrong that we often miss or erase all that is good.
I am a strong advocate for taking responsibility for our mistakes. Whether we know it or not, mistakes need to be corrected, changes need to be implemented, and we need to get better. We all need to be accountable for the wrongs we do and correct them as quickly as possible.
I want to make an even stronger plea to ask you to not erase all the good you do when you make those corrections. Please never allow one little mistake to cause you to believe that nothing is good. Correct what you need to correct and cherish and nurture all that is still good.
There is no mistake that erases everything good.
Next time you make a mistake in your password or when typing a document, please remember this. One little wrong does not erase everything that is right. Keep all the good while you make whatever corrections you need to make. Then, remember that in life too!
