When I wake up in the morning, particularly on a weekend morning, when there’s more time, one of the often recurring thoughts I have, is in regards to all of the avoidable mistakes I’ve made; how they’ve followed me around to this day. This is a thought that I’ve had for much of my adult life, even as the stages of adulthood progress.

While I eventually clean up, whatever can be cleaned up, as a consequence of my mistakes; inevitably new avoidable mistakes are made to fill the vacuum. I suppose that many of these mistakes are only avoidable in retrospect; but at least I now know that most mistakes are not inevitable.

As painful as it is, to have this kind of reflection, there are valuable benefits to be had.

Facing the consequences of our actions is the feedback we get from the universe. If we’ve made mistakes, and we all have, then it clues us in on where our awareness is lacking and on where we should look to gain conscious mastery.

It seems that many of our mistakes are relatively easy to avoid, by developing awareness and mastery; but we’re not always aware of what we lack.

I believe the key is to continue to introspect, when a difficult problem arises, not simply make excuses or blame it on someone or something else. At some level, we typically do have responsibility, even if this responsibility is only partial.

Think deeply of the many different possibilities, of how you can re-emerge, even if it takes weeks or months to find a good path out. The best problem solving takes patience, unless you want to just create new problems.

Do this rather than surrender to dispar; because even if problems often do just go away, in many cases, they’ll often manifest in a different form, if you haven’t dealt with the underlying cause. Put in that extra effort now, to find real answers and develop genuine solutions, or pay tenfold, down the path, when the problems evolve and multiply.