Last week a friend sent me a handmade card. On the front it said, “You did the best you could with what you had at the time.”

This really made me ponder. We so often look back at our lives and think, “If only…”

“If only I had known x”, or “If only I had then those skills of y”. Maybe in the time since we made those choices or took those actions we have learned about x or mastered the skills of y. Then we’re even more harsh on ourselves.

Another friend is mending a much-loved plate that got dropped and broken. He says he wishes he could have had a trial run at it. The first few pieces he put back together look messy. As he has gone on with the repair however, he has improved, so there is hardly any crack showing in the later pieces.

But life doesn’t give us a trial run. There is no rewind button so we can go back and do it again. If we’re lucky, we may be able to repeat an action several times and get better at it as we learn the skills.

While some people are naturally good at things – we all know people who are naturally good listeners, for instance – mostly we have to be bad at something before we can get good at it. I think I’ve got better at listening and showing empathy over the years. I’ve read books which deal with listening and have attended courses on communication, learning that listening is three quarters of it. “Seek first to understand,” says Stephen Covey in his excellent book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.”

Then there’s knowing the social conventions in certain situations. Sometimes it’s as simple as knowing that you never cut your dinner roll with a knife but always break it with your fingers. Sometimes it’s knowing that in conversation with an acquaintance or stranger on a commuter train, you converse only until the first station is reached, after which time it’s acceptable to open your paper or book or indeed just to fall silent. You do not keep chatting for the whole journey.

Perhaps we have put our foot in it with someone because we just didn’t know. “How’s Gary?” we ask. “I don’t know,” comes the frosty reply. “We split up six months’ ago.” Oops. How many times have we wished the ground would just open up and swallow us whole?

But the point is, that we didn’t know, we didn’t have that knowledge or those skills. So perhaps it’s time to look back and forgive ourselves. We did the best we could with what we had at the time and that’s okay. We couldn’t have done better. We must accept, forgive and move on.

Where do you need to accept and forgive, and can you move on?

Mary

A Moodscope member