Regrets, I've Had a Few

No one gets to be my age without making some mistakes, having some regrets.  And yes, I have.

Mostly those mistakes were errors in judgement - how much I was actually capable of accomplishing.  Hanging onto something that wasn't working for too long.

Some of these errors wound up causing me grief, in one way or another.  No one enjoys making mistakes.  But we do.  It is how we deal with the results of our mistakes that make them valuable.  As in the "Well, I won't do that again" if nothing else.  But that is how we learn.  That is how we gain knowledge.  Even, at times, wisdom.

Some mistakes have much larger consequences than others.  Some carry more grief.  But there is always a lesson to be learned.

Students sometimes get so focused on the mistakes that they neglect to see the lesson.  My job as a teacher, I feel, is not to point out the mistakes but to help them come to see the lessons.

Teaching a workshop is a great deal different than teaching the Olds master weaving program.  The goal is different.  Teaching a workshop is an encapsulated very focused look at a particular aspect of weaving (usually).  The Olds program is meant to help students see the lesson.  Mistakes will be made.  Disappointments will happen.  Knowledge will increase if the student analyses what they have done so they learn from what they have done.  How has this warp not met expectations?  What needs to change to make it align more with the intent?

Rose bushes with beautiful white blossoms also have thorns.  When we stop to smell the roses, we need to appreciate the blossoms and avoid the thorns.  And we need to get past our regrets, our mistakes.  Absorb the lesson.

As one of my mentors would say - if you aren't making mistakes, you aren't learning anything new.