There Are No Mistakes

Me: I’m a fucking idiot. Every time I take a step, I make a mistake.

Spirit: You have never made a mistake.

Me: How can you say that? I can name a hundred -- a thousand!

Spirit: You can’t even name one. Listen to me -- the one constant in life is change. It’s like you’re perpetually walking on a sphere that never stops spinning. Not for one second does it pause. If you stop taking steps, you’ll fall. So you keep going, right?

Me: Right.

Spirit: And can you be expected to know the right direction in which to turn your feet at all times?

Me: I suppose not.

Spirit: So you have to keep walking without knowing where exactly you’re going. Won’t this inevitably lead to sometimes heading in the “wrong” direction?

Me: All the time.

Spirit: In Reality, there are no wrong directions.

Me: Now that is definite bullshit. I’ve made terrible mistakes.

Spirit: I’m sure you regret some past directions, maybe deeply. But how can they be mistakes?

Me: Because they led to loss.

Spirit: There is no loss without gain.

Me: More optimistc doublespeak bullshit.

Spirit: The reason there are no mistakes in the walk of life is because there is only One Road and all roads lead you back to it.

Me: Explain.

Spirit: This One Road is what the Chinese called your Tao, or The Way. The Hindus called it your Dharma. The ideal is to keep your feet on the One Road. If you stray too far from it, chances are you’ll meet an ill fate.

Me: I don’t like the idea of “fate.” Sounds like punishment.

Spirit: Fate isn’t a Punishment. You. Deserve. Fate is an electric fence that says, “You can go no further.” Fate shows you you’ve reached a Dead End. You’ve strayed too far from the One Road.

Me: I feel like I’m up against that fence in my life right now and the pain is shocking. Sometimes it’s unbearable.

Spirit: Remember, the fence isn’t there for your punishment. It’s there to warn you that you’re as far away from the One Road as you can possibly get, so head back. That is all. No mistake has been made. You simply strayed from the path and fate intervened to show you there’s no further you can go in your current direction.

Me: I don’t understand.

Spirit: Let’s try this. Imagine a rat trapped in a maze. To escape, she has to discover the pattern of the maze. There’s no way she can do this without exploration -- and there is no exploration without a “mistake.” Has she made a mistake if the direction she takes in the maze leads her to a dead end? If she has to retreat?

Me: Well, yeah, technically she has.

Spirit: But would you blame her for it?

Me: I suppose not.

Spirit: It’s a necessary part of the process.

Me: But wrong directions result in loss.

Spirit: From the limited perspective of the person in the maze. There’s a higher perspective. If I’m watching you in the maze from above, and I see you run into a dead end, I look down and say, “Aha, she’s discovered something. Next time she will try a different way.” From my perspective, I only see gain.

Me: In that scenario -- at the very least -- I have lost some time.

Spirit: But what does that matter? We’re always losing time. Time is the energy always keeping the sphere in motion -- time turns the ball. Think nothing of the time you’re losing, it’s no more than the time that must always be lost.

Me: Then life is constant loss.

Spirit: But the only thing there is to lose is time. And there is more to life than time.

Me: Look, this is getting abstract. The reality is, I’ve made a terrible mistake and lost a person -- the love of my life.

Spirit: You cannot lose a person. You can only lose time with that person. You think it was a terrible mistake to lose time with that person -- and I understand. But the mistake that you made, did you know you were making it at the time? Could you see where the road was going to lead?

Me: Of course not. I would take it all back if I could.

Spirit: Humans aren’t gods. They aren’t expected to be aware all the time. Sometimes you have lapses in consciousness. Sometimes you’re tired and overworked. But you still have to keep walking over the surface of the ever-turning sphere. It’s inevitable that during a lapse of awareness, your feet might take you in the wrong direction. It may lead you away from someone or something you love. There’s only one thing to do then.

Me: Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.

Spirit: Just keep walking. You’ll either end up finding your way back to the One Road, or you’ll run up against the electric fence. But don’t fear the fence -- it’ll point the way back.

Me: If it’s so easy to find your way back to the One Road, why do we live in the world that we do? It doesn’t look like most people have their feet on their road.

Spirit: It’s true that most people end up walking side-roads their whole life, never finding the main path. But we’re talking about you. You’ll always find your way back.

Me: How do you know?

Spirit: Because every time you get lost, you remember me. I’d rather you remembered me all the time, but whatever, it’s easy to forget. You remember that I can see the whole maze from above, like a bird. I’ll always tell you where to go, anytime you ask.

Me: Yet I still make mistakes.

Spirit: If you and I had perfect communication, you wouldn’t worry about mistakes. But there’s no such thing as perfection. So we’ll do the best that we can. It’s all we can do.