on this thing that we are all really good at: making mistakes

It was last Sunday. My 9-year-old son was having a friend sleeping over at our place. His dad came before noon to pick him up. I had exciting family plans for the rest of the day, but the boys said that they wanted to continue playing together. I abruptly said no, I wanted time just with my family. Only that I was away the day before and in the end, I forgot to properly discuss our Sunday plans. And it didn’t help that I hadn’t interacted with my son much on Sunday morning. At that moment I was a stranger and intruder for him. He was hurt and immediately shut down on me. Only then I realized my mistake, and it took another 1.5 hours of loving patience and showing him how sorry I was to open him up again.

One of my favourite, most helpful, and liberating life observations is the simple fact that we all fuck-up, and we do this with astonishing regularity. Below is my ideal scenario of dealing with our missteps towards other fellow humans.