It's Sortof Okay to Mess Up

So a couple months ago I did something mindlessly stupid. Let X represent the incredible stupid action. Let's let 'Alfred' be the unfortunate primary victim of X. I knew about 1.31459 seconds after I did X that it was stupid and hurtful. (This entry is not meant to imply that only one such X has occurred in the last 2 months, just that one is on my mind.) X wasn't really something I could apologize for without simply making the situation worse. (And yes, I know, this sounds unbelievable. Such are the oddities of the modern era.)

Anyway, I recently ran into Alfred and we talked (a bit) about X. Probably not enough, but enough for me to realize that I probably have not ruined every waking moment of Alfred's life. Yes, for those of you wondering, that is a Good Idea (TM).

Running into Alfred has me thinking about the ways people (especially me) try and justify ourselves when we're wrong, and what I think the proper response is.

Line 1:

It doesn't really matter. I didn't really hurt Alfred. He shouldn't be so sensitive to X. I'm okay because it is not my fault.

Line 2:

It doesn't matter because I'm human. I didn't catch the consequences of my actions, but I'm not expected to. It's unreasonable to think I should never do something thoughtlessly that hurts someone else. I'm okay because I'm doing what is reasonable.

Line 3:

I can't help it. I've tried to be more thoughtful, more compassionate, more caring, but I just don't change. I'm okay because I'm doing my best.

Line 4: (and my personal favorite)

I don't care. Too bad that Alfred is hurt. Too bad that others are pushed away by me. I just don't care. I'm okay because I'm not emotionally impacted.

(I wanted to use affected instead of impacted, but I'm afraid my English-teaching-play-quoting-grammar-fiend-friend would yell at me because it ought to be effected.)

At the moment, my mind is contemplating two thoughts:
1. It is not okay to be wrong. None of the above lines are entirely true, although there is some truth in most of them.

2. As a Christian, I am okay even when wrong because Jesus died to make me right with God. I think as a culture, we tried and think it terms of I'm okay because I haven't messed up tooo badly. I do, at least. This idea means when I reach some level of severe messing up, I'm not okay any more. Let's call this level 'U', and the okay level of messing up level 'A'.

This idea that I'm not okay unless I'm behaving at level A also means that I can't really consider the possibility that I consistently think or behave at level U without having a major nervous meltdown.

In contrast, as I really grasp and believe that I'm okay because of what Jesus did for me, I'm free to examine who I really am and who God wants me to become. It is too bad that I only tend to grow in my understanding of my identity in Jesus as I am having a nervous breakdown. I could definitely improve my process here.