Important lessons can be learned by a person's errors in judgment and mistakes. Recently I learned from an error in judgment that I made. The incident occurred when I insulted one of my best friend's wife (not done intentionally). This set off a journey of internal soul searching on my part. The incident: While at my friend's house for dinner, I made a comment that was directed at my friend's wife. She did not hear the comment but my friend did hear it. He did not say anything (Didn't want to embarrass me in front of her). He knew what I had meant by the comment but was unhappy with what I said. It was a very insulting comment. A few days went by and then my friend confronted me. Initially I resisted. Finally the light bulb went on and I realized that my actions were very wrong. So what did I learn from this incident? I learned that even though I try to lead a good and moral life, I'm human and do make mistakes. I must take action not to let the same mistake to occur again. In this case I admitted complete wrong doing to myself with no exceptions. I also learned that admitting an error to yourself is not enough. You must make amends for the harm that has been caused. In this case, I disrespected my friend by insulting his wife. My resolution was to apologize to him and express my regrets for the comments that were made. I admitted that they were wrong and needless. I asked for his forgiveness. The final lesson that I learned was that I had to apologize to the silent victim (my friend's wife who didn't hear my comments). My friend said that it wasn't necessary to apologize to his wife but I disagreed. I believe that like lies there are two types of harm that can be committed against another person. The first type of harm is a direct harm that is committed against another person (like hitting a person). Then there is a silent harm that is committed (insulting someone behind their back). In this case I committed the silent harm that wasn't heard by my friend's wife. I felt that out of respect for my friend and his wife, I needed to apologize to her and ask for forgiveness. That's exactly what I did. The lessons I learned came directly from the teachings of my religion (Judaism). Once a year, we must ask G-d or anyone that we have sinned against, for forgiveness. We are told that we should act this way throughout the whole year. While this exercise was initially very painful, it was extremely rewarding. I was able to learn something about myself. More importantly, I was able to correct the harm done to both my friend and his wife. I was able to make sure that there was honesty and integrity in our friendship. I would like to thank my friend for having the courage and strength to be honest with me and to challenge me. I will do my best in the future to prevent these types of incidents. |
