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Buenos Aires, Sunday, July 30, 2006

Father Oscar Pezzarini

Do we know how to cope with mistakes?

I wonder many times if being a "perfectionist" is actually a virtue, or if it is a defect. I believe both things are true. I always think that the important thing in life is not the lack of failure, "not falling down", but the ability to react when faced with some failure, if we are able to get up after we fell down. Thus it seems fundamental to me that we prepare our children and young people already at a young age for this chance of making mistakes, how to cope with an error, how to be able to "take it on", "to accept" their own falures instead of making them think they may be "almighty" up to the point of talking of "failure" when they make a mistake. I hope we will be able to teach our youngsters there is no "troubleless" life without the chance of making errors, but that every person has the capability of overcoming them.

I wonder many times if being a "perfectionist" is actually a virtue, or if it is a defect. I believe both things are true.

Of course it is a virtue since it pushes us to do things in a perfect way.

But it seems to me it also is a defect since reality shows us that there are no fully perfect things in this world. There is always a chance of making a mistake, and in fact we make mistakes.

This is the reason why it seems to me that "learning to make mistakes" is important, maybe among the first things we should be taught is the fact that failure is part of our human condition, that we should strive to do everything in the most "perfect" way we can, but that the chance of making mistakes is unavoidable.

Learning how to cope with mistakes would doubtlessly help us in many circumstances, and above all in our self-improvement so we don't think we "failed" when actually we just felt that unavoidably everything would happen according to our plans, that is to say, in a perfect way, and actually what later on appears as a failure is no other thing as the always present chance of making a mistake, or that not everything has a "perfect" outcome.

Young people have great ideals, they are made for great undertakings, and this should not be restrained, but they should be shown that often reality teaches us that there are achievements which wait for us behind some obstacles which we must overcome, that many times that which we call failure is just a new opportunity to show us we are forging ahead, even when everything makes us think the effort we put into carrying a task through was not worth it.

There is no one who hasn't ever made a mistake, but there are people who have managed to get new strength from their errors which makes them renew an undertaking instead of keeping the bitter feeling that every effort is futile and that trying again is not worth the trouble.

I hope we will be able to teach our youngsters there is no "troubleless" life without the chance of making errors, but that every person has the capability of overcoming them.

Father Oscar Pezzarini
Provincial Superior of the Work of Don Orione in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Mexico

Father Oscar Pezzarini together with Fr. Leonardo Abregz makes us reflect on Saturdays from 8 to 12 AM (GMT-03:00)with "VENTANA A LA VIDA", the Don Orione radio program he conducts on FM PROVIDENCIA, 90.3 MHz together with some residents of the Claypole Cottolengo (Razl Romero, Marma Laura Andrada, Alberto Zoroch, Amirico Torres), with the production of Roberto Beluzzo and Ignacio Cavalli as technical operator. You can also listen to FM PROVIDENCIA by clicking here.

Pequeqo Cottolengo Don Orione 0800-333-6746 in Argentina, or +54 (11) 4268-7722 from abroad.

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