Striving towards Excellence

-Karthik Gurumurthy

I've been thinking about this whole idea of aging and making mistakes lately. There's this comforting truth that as long as we learn from our past mistakes and try not to repeat them, we're doing okay.

I'm realizing that the rules that apply to me apply to everyone else too. We're all getting older together, and not necessarily getting much wiser! Once I accepted this, I found myself becoming more forgiving and kinder to both myself and others.

The good news is that time really does heal, and things do get better as you age. The more mistakes you've already made, the less likely you are to make those particular ones again. That's why youth is so valuable - it's basically this period where you can make tons of mistakes and get them out of your system early!

But here's the thing - this idea that we automatically get wiser with age? Not exactly true. We keep being just as capable of messing up, we just make different mistakes. It's like there's this whole "pickle jar" of fresh mistakes just waiting for us to fall into. The real wisdom is accepting this and not beating yourself up when you inevitably screw up something new.

I can look back and clearly see all the mistakes I've made, but I'm completely blind to the ones waiting for me around the corner. That's just how it works. True wisdom isn't about becoming perfect - it's about learning how to mess up and still walk away with your dignity and sanity intact.

When we're young, we think aging only happens to "old people," but it happens to all of us, and it seems to accelerate the older we get. The more adventurous and flexible we are, the more new territory we'll explore - which means more opportunities to make entirely new and creative mistakes!

In a way, making new mistakes is a sign you're still growing and trying new things. It's all part of the "getting older but not necessarily wiser" journey that we're all on together.