Everyone Makes Mistakes, Oh Yes They Do

                I couldn’t help but think of Sesame Street’s Big Bird this morning when I read the umpteenth headline about Envelope-Gate – the Best Picture Oscar mix-up at last Sunday’s Academy Awards.  Yesterday’s news announced that two PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants will be forever banned from the Oscars for the screw up, while today’s news reports that Oscar’s Producer Michael De Luca may be passed over for a Paramount gig because of the flub.  One article goes so far as to claim that “The epic envelope snafu that rocked the Oscars is still sending aftershocks through Hollywood.”  Epic?  Aftershocks?  Really?  It was a mistake.  Didn’t Big Bird teach us that everyone makes mistakes?

                I’m not sure why, but we’ve become so hyper-critical these days that the simplest of mistakes become earth-shattering news.  We pounce on others’ failures at the drop of a hat (or at the spill of milk, as the saying goes).  Human nature offers us three possible reactions to the mistakes of others:  indifference; sympathy/empathy; and outrage.  While outrage may be an appropriate response to willful negligence that actually hurts people, it’s not the right response to simple, harmless errors.  Yet, bombastic, high-grounded outrage seems to be the response du jour.  Interestingly, psychologists see feigned moral outrage as an attempt to focus attention on others' flaws while deflecting attention away from our own.  Hmm, perhaps there are a lot of guilty consciences out there these days.

                We would all do well to focus on our own foibles, rather than on the mistakes of others.  Christ admonishes us to “remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.”  (Matthew 5:7)  When others make harmless mistakes, a little sympathy or empathy can go a long way toward healing and forgiveness.  It’s time to give each other a break, assume positive intent, forgive and move on.  Remember, we could be next.  As Big Bird so wisely said, “Everyone makes mistakes, oh yes they do!”

Click here to listen to Everyone Makes Mistakes, by Big Bird