having a rough go of it?

If you're having a rough go of it today, beating yourself for the 142 things you could have done better in all those situations (yesterday, last week, last year), remember:

1) History paints context. A year or two down the road, your "fuckup" will often reveal itself as part of a much bigger picture that needed to unfold to get you to a more complete place in your life.

2) Life doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. Yes, you make mistakes. Some of them might be staggering in their impact and majesty. But it doesn't follow that you *are* solely your mistakes. The mistakes are always one tail of the arc of who you are as a person. So:

You bark too much at loved ones can be one tail of the arc. At the other end of the arc: a person who cares fiercely and deeply and who expresses their love (as well as their displeasure) without restraint. These two tails aren't mutually exclusive. It doesn't mean you shouldn't look at the barking - but look at it in context.

Or maybe you turn heads with awkward comments in social situations. At the other end of the arc: an artist or mystic or sensitive soul who sees *so much* beauty and nuance moment to moment that it's next to impossible to jam it all into neat small-talk sentences.

So hold your mistakes *and* the so-easy-to-dismiss-gifts you bring to the world as carefully in your cupped hands as you would a newborn.

At the grandest level, as you intersect with others and paint your grand cartography across the world's canvas, see that identifying yourself with solely with your mistakes is as valid as having cold without heat, light without darkness, music without silence: anemic, wanting, nonsensical, and literally half of the picture.

Always ever onward!