Today I went out to one of Washington's lovely area gardens to do some scouting and just to walk around and enjoy a beautiful day of Summer.  Since I am a total Olympic junkie, I know I will be glued to the upcoming games and watching the events with excitement, so I wanted to spend some time in Nature. We have a great and wonderful number of botanic parks and gardens in Washington, and Summer is a glorious time.  

 When I returned home, I was watching the recap of the USA womens' soccer game and heard about the mistake made at another womens' soccer match involving a mixup of flags.  All involved were sure that someone just made a mistake - after all, this is a huge event and takes a tremendous amount of work to pull together as a host city.  None the less, it created a terrible flap with players walking out and all kinds of accusations being thrown around.  

Happily, the organizers admitted it was simply human error, and apologized profusely, and (happily) the game was finally played.  

During my walk today, amidst all the beautiful flowers and grounds, I found a very old tree.  It was gnarled and twisted, with knot holes and breaks in the old bark.   But the tree itself was huge and tall and strong.  And looking at it, I was reminded that we, as humans, are like the tree.  We are shaped by our environment, our experiences, our lives.  Some of us come through that better, stronger and some, well just don't come up as well.  But we share that we are all human - fallible, and imperfect - and we make mistakes.  What we do when this happens defines how we go about our life.  How we react to ourselves and others when they make mistakes says a lot about our character.  Do we try to cover up, or do we do the right thing and admit it?  Do you have compassion for others (and yourself) when something comes up wrong?  You must, because you cannot forgive others unless you first learn to forgive yourself.  We are all human, after all.  Mistakes can help us learn and grow - if we are kind to ourselves and accept them, and use them as a tool for increasing our understanding and knowledge.  Every great moment has been reached through many errors, learning and re-learning each time, accepting these not as failures, but as stepping stones to improvement and learning.  So, the next time you or someone around you makes a mistake, stop, and think "what can I (we) learn from this?"  Let kindness, not anger, be your guide.  You will be so much the better for that.

The beauty of life is, while we cannot undo what is done,

Namaste,

Lesli