Fail, Learn, and Try Again

Sometimes you try to do everything as carefully as possible, only to realize later that you've missed something so obviously wrong. Why does that happen? It seems that perfectionism alone isn't enough. Even if you have a checklist, even if you review your work over and over again, even if you try to do things slowly and follow the rules to the letter, you'll still end up making errors here and there. And I suppose it's easy to be kind to ourselves and move on, but when it's about our job or some important task, and when it happens to be something that will be under the scrutiny of others, then it becomes hard to tolerate. You end up getting a double whammy of self-hatred and unkind criticism from the world.

Anyway, I'll just try to do better next time. There's no point in whining over something I can no longer fix. I've learned my lesson and will try not to make the same mistake again.

[UPDATE: As it turned out, the situation that caused me to write this wasn't that serious, and in fact, wasn't even a problem at all. My anxiety over it was therefore a waste of time.]