What I learned from making mistakes

I've been feeling quite proud and a bit overconfident because I thought that I was now mature and I took responsibilities for my mistakes. I was no longer afraid to apologize first unlike I was in the not-so-far past. 

But I was wrong about myself.

I accept at the superficial level that I am not perfect and I could make mistakes. But, in reality, it is not always easy to accept that I have limitations. Especially it is harder when things have been going well on my favor. And that's when I lose sight of myself.

About a week ago, I was blamed by  a very important client for failure to communicate an important technical aspect of project. In normal circumstances, I could have been able to handle it like a mature responsible person. But I was not. I felt trapped and felt like a 5 year old kid who did something wrong. And worst, I did act like a 5 year old kid—I tried to escape from the blame so I gave excuses that it was not my fault.

I felt terrible after that because I’m in charge of the project and not in that sort of position to not take responsibilities for my own mistake. Even after I fixed the situation right away and did a damage control, I was in a big emotional trauma. I could not forgive myself and could not sleep the whole night.

A week after, I made another mistake again—I failed to communicate to my boss, chief technical officer, about another important technical aspect of the same project. A couple of people including the CTO were disappointed with me. I felt terrible again but this time, I had recovered quickly. I did not dwell on my mistake so long. I apologized to the team very quickly and I admitted that it was my fault.

On my way back home, I thought about why I’ve been making big mistakes twice in a row within a week. Even though I apologized quickly in the second time, I was feeling very uneasy. Then I realized that I learned incredible lessons from these mistakes. Within one week, I feel that I've become grown and personally expanded.

Here is what I learned:

1.     I was reminded of my own limitations.

When things were going well, I could not see myself where I actually was and where I still needed to improve. Only after I made mistakes, did I understand about my own limitations. Facing our own weaknesses and limitations could be quite scary, but without facing them and accepting them, we cannot expand and grow as a person. I will never be a perfect human being since perfection does not exist. I think that one of the most amazing things about life is learning about our own imperfections and continuously trying to fix them in order to become a better person. I think it is an incredible process and a wonderful journey!

2.     Importance of forgiveness

There are two ways for us to feel pain. One is caused by external events or people, which is out of our control. The other is caused by our own reaction to that external pain, in other words, our self-inflicted pain. It was already painful to learn about my own limitations. I made it worse by feeling really guilty about it. I could not forgive myself for several hours. Then I really made an effort to forgive myself. I learned how important it is for us to be kind and forgiving to ourselves in order to move forward.

3.     I have been out of my comfort zone!

After going through guilt, self-disappointment and apologies to people, I discovered that I’ve been out of my comfort zone. When you are doing usual things that you are familiar with or working within your limits, you do not make mistakes. I’ve realized that I’ve been doing a lot more taking a lot more responsibilities and working on much more complex projects. That was one of the “uh-ha” moment and I felt grateful to myself for questioning and also grateful for all the opportunities to get me out of my comfort zone so that I can grow.

What it means to really care to talk to someone

Most of the times, I feel that I need to do something big or to become someone in order to be able to do something meaningful or something that matters. But, it makes me really surprised sometimes how very tiny things I do could make someone's day better. 

Lately, I'd been feeling super stressed at work—too many projects on my plate with many competing timelines. I got too stressed that I wanted to take a long break to do 3-6 months of hiking a long distance trail like Appalachian trail or PCT; or leave all these behind and become a recluse or a hippie. I was thinking, "What's the point of all this? We are all screwed anyway, right? I'm not gonna be able to do anything to help anyone, at least not in this world." 

Very luckily for me, in the past two days, I got to leave the office! I was out with an international consultant in a community outside of Yangon to pre-test survey tools. To be able to be out of office for two full days, I worked 13 hours the day before so that I did not have to worry about the deadlines for some other deliverables. 

It is one thing to see tabulated data, and read transcripts of interviews and focus group discussions but it is a whole different story when you really talk to people and get to interact with them in a community. Many of our social research projects are carried out nationwide or in many different parts of the country. It is quite fascinating to learn so much about all these different communities—their diverse ways of life and many different practical issues at community level. 

In the past two days out in the field, all these people we interviewed were super amazing. They were so hospitable to us. They were so generous with their time and they just really wanted to treat us so well regardless of how poor they are. (That is, a family of five, a husband and wife with 3 young children, live on approximately $3 a day.) The house we visited has no furniture. She laid down a mat for us, and asked someone to go buy two bottles of juice for us from a nearby shop. 

They were so happy that we cared to know about their life as we asked so many questions. No matter how humble we were and how down-to-earth we were, our interviewee knew for sure that we came from a very different socio-economic background than hers. Before we took off, the woman said, "It's so lucky that you came here (to her house.) There is no way for me to come across and to be able to interact with such well-educated people like you." 

All we did was stealing 2.5 hours of her time for the day and she was grateful we cared to know about her and her family. A few of her relatives heard that she got guests in her house so they stopped by to see us. We also interviewed a school head of a primary school, who treated us with lunch she cooked and brought for us. She was informed from the township education office that we were visiting her school. 

Even though these people would be considered materially poor, they are rich in love and kindness. They are so happy and content with what they have—they gave me hope and faith in humanity once again. 

Both my colleague and I were so grateful to these people and their heart-warming generosity. In the past two days, on our way back in the car, two of us had so much fun talking about our adventures in the U.S. visiting some beautiful national parks, about people who helped us in our life in great ways, about people who inspire us, about books we read and about what we want to do with our lives.

When we are really open and care to talk to someone or anyone, we can really have meaningful connections with anyone. Isn't it so wonderful? 

On letting go

About a year and half ago, it was a few months after I turned 30, I was about to finish my masters degree and I did not know what to do after graduation because I realized I did not want to be an accountant anymore.

At first, I thought I was just having a cold feet or simply unsure about working such long hours or plainly lazy to study for CPA exams. While all of those could have been quite valid reasons, I might not have the courage to actually change the career track at that point.

Then something happened—a hurtful breakup.

The timing would not be anymore perfect. I was 30, and found myself guilty of doing nothing meaningful, and someone I thought I could probably talk to decided to end things. I felt completely lost.

In the midst of all those brokenness and pains, I made a very questionable decision —a decision to move back to my home country after 10 years living in the U.S. I put together all the pieces of me everywhere and took the flight back home.

An existential crisis and a heartbreak—it wasn't a pretty combination. I was shattered in pieces, literally and metaphorically. Many nights, I cried. It felt like that pain would never go away.

The very good thing about being lost in life and going through a painful breakup is that you questioned your status quo like you would never before. I read a lot and I questioned myself a lot, which felt like I owed to myself for the past 10 years.


With the hardest questions I asked myself and a little bit of education and reading, I was back on track with the career in no time. I found a job that I really love, that I find fulfilling and meaningful in so many ways.

In terms of the heartbreak, I was barely making any progress. But, like everything else in life, I knew that I would not be in that stage forever. It would pass and I would move on no matter what. I knew it was a matter of time. So I waited....

Six months in, still no progress. I was still crying hard. Nine months, still not much difference. I knew I needed to let go and move on but I could not. I thought a day would "eventually come" when I would just forget him and get over with what happened.

And it was a year after since I moved back. I had a conversation with an old friend from NYC. She asked "have you decided to move on?" I could not understand what kind of question it was. My answer was no of course because I did not think that I could "decide", making a conscious choice, to move on.

That was a turning point. I thought about it and made that conscious decision to move on after that conversation. I knew it would not be easy but I decided to make an effort everyday to let go of whatever I was holding on to.

Once after I made that choice to let go, I had become so much happier and free. I thought I was holding onto love. In reality, what I was holding onto was just an ego and a denial to accept the reality - a painful reality that this horrible thing had happened to "ME", someone I cared about left "ME" and "I" cannot do anything to turn that around. I needed to accept that it happened to me and he already made the choice that he thought could be happier for him. Trying to turn that around would simply mean not respecting his choice that suited better for him.

But, after letting go of that ego and starting to accept the reality, what was left was mostly gratitude—sweet memories of that incredible human being and gratitude that I had a wonderful time with him, even though it was not as long as I would have liked it to be.

They say, "Time heals wounds''. I think it is misleading because it makes you think you need to wait. In fact, we can always make a conscious choice to let ourselves heal and be free from the pain we hold onto, right here and now.

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