Screwing Up

OK, I think, it’s time I took the twist I was intending to
take here from the beginning ’ that is, learning from the old bloke with the
silver beard who has to die in book 6.

So, lesson
number one (I’m sure I’ll lose the number pretty quickly, but that way it
sounds more poignant) ’

Mistakes.

I suppose
there are a lot of things to learn from Dumbledore before we reach the point in
the books where he admits that he makes mistakes, which happens ’ as you most
likely know ’ in the end of Order of the
Phoenix. However, this was the first lesson I “took in”. It made me appreciate
the guy differently.

Before that
Dumbledore seemed to be almost too perfect ’ powerful, intelligent, having all
the wisdom of the world, leading Harry (and me) in life and all that jazz. He
was that perfect symbol no one could ever reach which was a bit annoying and
depressing me. I guess, it has to do with the fact that I always try to aim for
the highest point possible. Dumbledore seemed to present me with a point which
he clearly could reach, but which seemed to be beyond my abilities, because I
wasn’t as perfect and would screw up at times. I thought that it ruined all my
chances to ever reach anything great even though I still was so young (and
stupid, apparently).

I found out
that it is the basic nature of a learning process (and life) that you are going
to screw up. But when I started school and started making mistakes there I
didn’t know that. I read about and saw people who apparently weren’t screwing
up ’ my parents, teachers… Dumbledore. I thought that the fact that I made
mistakes meant I could never be as cool as they seemed to be. But growing up I
found out that it wasn’t true ’ everyone
makes mistakes and some people still achieve awesome things. And that was very
comforting. It made me realise that even I’m not all little miss get-it-all-perfect-at-once,
I still can reach the heights I’m aiming at.

So, I
learnt that mistakes are inevitable and that they don’t necessarily have to
ruin your efforts. However, I think, if you don’t do anything about your
mistakes, don’t learn anything from them, then you don’t really move towards
whatever it is that you’re trying to achieve. I believe that all the great
people have accomplished so much, because they’ve learnt from their mistakes.
Take Dumbledore, for example: when he was young he learnt that it’d be better
if he avoided power (from the whole deal with Deathly Hallows) and look what he
became. Admittedly, this is very much into “what if” category ’ who knows how
he had become if he’d pursued Deathly Hallows and that idea of his that wizards
should rule Muggles. However, I think, Dumbledore became such a great wizard
because he learnt his lesson. Thus, when studying, I always want to know the
right answer, the reason for the error.

Of course,
it’s not all that simple. Some mistakes don’t get undone when you learn the
right answer and apply it ’ for example, Dumbledore’s mistake pretty much cost
Ariana’s life and there’s no way to really amend that. I think, it’s sad and it
kind of sucks, but I don’t quite know how to deal with that kind of mistakes
yet ’ try and learn from it as much as you can maybe? Got any advice?

Learning
from my mistakes,

Justi