A few weeks ago I’m cutting the grass… my god the whole floor is also full of pine needles, it will take me FOREVER to cut it…
MOW
Alright, my dad plays golf a lot in our garden, have to move his golf stuff…
Hmm, okay his golf mat is there, it has a lot of needles on it so maybe I can just go and vacuum it up with the lawnmower…
Or, I could just pick it up and shake all the dirt off…
Ah, the mat is just like grass. I should go over it safely…
MOW SHREDS
OH MY GOD!
No no no… why did I do that…
I used the lawnmower to suck up all the dirt of the mat, instead the mat got sucked into the blades and got shredded…
There’s a whole strip down the middle that has been completely cut… god that was so stupid…
What do I tell my father? Do I either lie and hope he doesn’t notice or just tell the truth now and have him get angry at me?
But if I lie to my father… and he finds out later while playing golf… he will know I didn’t tell him.
AHH okay, let me continue mowing and decide later.
…
I’m done mowing the grass, but this is the worst time to stop… because now I have to pass my dad and tell him what I did…
Dad, I accidentally destroyed your golf mat.
I couldn’t look him in the eyes while confessing…
Ahh nooo, Alex why did you do that?
Oh well… I understand, shit happens… that’s life.
Wait what? He understands?
But years ago, I would’ve lied… probably told the truth but in a way that made it not seem like my fault…
And if I messed up, I would’ve told myself that I was a mistake, or that I was a stupid person…
This time… I didn’t let what I did make me think I’m a stupid person.
And that sounds obvious now. But for most of my life, I was terrible at letting a mistake stay a mistake.
I’m 14 years old doing a math test and I’m handing the paper in…
but I got one of the answers wrong…
even thought I did extremely well on the test, I still talk to my teacher immediately:
Teacher! I know I got this answer right! I know I should’ve but I just messed up!
My teacher looks at my test and we go through it together…
…
Yes Alex, you really did well. You understand it.
Yes I know right! Thank you for understanding!
I feel so good, now he knows I just made a mistake… and he knows how I fixed it and how smart I really am.
Okay, now I can move on from that mistake…
…
I’m in high school at 17 and I’m doing a test again… math…
I sit down and look at the whole paper, Pythagoras theorem…
What… I don’t understand a single thing on this paper…
Oh my god… my head hurts so much… is my brain really this dumb at calculating this?
Didn’t I study for this?'
I’m sitting halfway through the test, and I know everybody else has probably gone through most of the test…
while I’m still here barely on the first few questions…
but I’m tired, my head hurts… but I know if I fail this test I will probably get a bad grade.
I almost hold in my tears as I…
stand up… walk towards the teacher while looking at the floor… and hand it in early…
…
I’m on the bus going towards the train station…
God, why am I such a failure?
I used to be so smart when I was younger…
I'm getting the worst grades ever in my life…
have I become… dumber?
I wake up and am supposed to go the the gym.
ah, I really don’t want to go to the gym today…
but if I don’t go, I will probably lose the routine…
ahhh let me just skip it today…
…
I’m watching YouTube shorts while resting up…
but I’m thinking to myself:
God, why did I skip the gym?
I was too tired but now I’m literally wasting so much time…
I would’ve been way more productive if I went to the gym today…
I get out of bed and tell myself I will go the next time…
…
Ah, maybe I’m not so disciplined, I will just skip this week… I will start again next Monday…
I will just focus on work.
I’m recording videos and sitting on my bed and chair all day…
my back and legs start to get stiff…
I haven’t gone to the gym for a few days, it’s almost like my body really is telling me to go…
But damn… why can’t I just be more disciplined and consistent? But I also want to rest, I feel tired sometimes… but then I lose the entire routine and skip everything… AHHH
I should just gym all the time and never take a day off… then I’ll be consistent.
…
I’m laying in bed and I’m supposed to go to the gym…
alright… do I go to the gym today? Although I do feel quite tired and have a few others things I need to do.
Alright, let me skip today… and then let me start again next time.
I lie in bed almost all day and go to play my piano and read my books.
I live my life, and don’t think about the gym or how I skipped it.
…
I wake up 2 days later…
Okay, I’m ready to gym. I probably will be a bit stiff but I feel very much rested and ready to go…
I do my workouts and feel great afterwards. I don’t think about 2 days earlier when I skipped the gym and let it affect what I decide to do today.
…
I made a decision and whether it was the optimal one or not, I stopped attacking myself for it. Instead I focused on what I could do next.
The difference wasn’t that I stopped skipping days.
I stopped making the skipped day decide what I did next.
I rested. And when I was ready to train again, I trained.
I think that was one of the first times I understood what self-forgiveness was actually useful for.
I’m sitting at the dinner table with my family and the guests we have…
we are done so I take my plate to the kitchen.
Uh oh, I feel a fart coming… Should I fart silently? Probably more appropriate.
…
When I’m alone with my family and I fart, nobody really cares, so I should let it out… it’s a bit funny.
And maybe the people here will laugh at a sudden fart haha…
So instead of letting it out silently…
I MAKE IT LOUD.
Faaaart
My dad looks at me:
Alex, what are you doing!!!
My mother and the guests just look at me and laugh…
my mother tells my dad it’s not that serious…
Oh my I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.
…
Now I’m standing there completely embarrassed because I’ve done something so wrong, why did I do that?
But I blamed myself because of information that I could’ve only known after the event…
so in my mind, when I actually did it I really thought it wasn’t anything wrong or bad… I did it all the time with family.
…
Years later… I messed something up, I was supposed to send my father a document. But he wanted it in PDF instead of a picture.
So when I read the message that sting came in like damn, but then I immediately thought:
Okay, I didn’t know that. I will just send the correct document and immediately forgive myself by doing the right thing and not blaming myself.
I send a message to my father:
My fault. Is this the correct one? (PDF)
And then my father says:
No need to apologize, you couldn’t have known you were supposed to send a PDF instead of a photo. I could’ve been more specific.
I’m in town with my sister and we’re just going to get something quickly…
I park in my normal parking spot that I’ve always done…
I come back 20 minutes later and I see a ticket on my car…
As always, how many times am I going to forget to put that parking timer?
Wait… the parking timer is there.
What did I get a parking ticket for?
So I grab the piece of paper and read it…
$100 DOLLARS? What the hell did I do?
I look at the description… parked in a disabled spot without the proper papers…
I look up at where I’ve parked…
OH SHIT
I LITERALLY PARKED IN THE DISABLED PEOPLE’S SPOT.
…
Yeah, I parked in the disabled people’s spot…
My dad looks at me and is like: How did that happen?
But I just feel a bit embarrassed, but nothing happens…
I paid the ticket, told my parents the truth… they knew I made a mistake, I knew I made a mistake and I forgot about it a few hours later. Usually I would lie and then think of myself as an embarrassment, always messing up.
But…
The fine was already the consequence of my mistake. I didn't need to turn embarrassment into another one.
Looking back, I thought being consistent meant considerately doing the thing repeatedly for an extended period of time… without interruption.
But life, whether it forced me or not… made me take breaks every once in a while. And instead of simply taking the break and returning the next time to continue. I beat myself down and told myself I was inconsistent, undisciplined and lazy.
If my teacher saw that I understood the question, I could tell myself,
Okay, I just messed up.
But when nobody was there to reassure me, I was much more likely to turn the mistake into something about who I was.
Now I don’t think that consistency is only doing things uninterrupted without any feelings whatsoever to what happens…
I think it means: When the line breaks, how quickly do I return?
But no matter what, I still show up to work again… pick up from the day I took off… or continue from whatever mistake or bad things I made, without making it an identity or conclusion about myself or the future.
Missing one day wasn't what made me inconsistent.
The problem was what I did after missing it.
I used to think consistency meant getting it right again and again.
Now I think a lot of it is what happens when you don’t.
I still make mistakes.
I still feel stupid sometimes.
I still regret things.
I just try to take responsibility, learn what I can, and return.
I didn’t become consistent by learning how to never fail.
I became consistent when one failure stopped needing to become five.