There are two truths about errors: They happen, and the world moves on once it happened.
What defines us is how we deal with these truths. And, how we deal with them results from how we relate to them.
For some, errors are such a problem that not seeing them is the highest priority. Implementing this priority becomes, for example, trying to prevent errors from happening by seeking full control of the situation. Another option to relate to errors can be to choose never to be responsible for these errors. The chosen strategy then becomes to define one’s role in such a way that the responsibility is always with someone else.
Both situations shift the focus away from the real objective and the current situation. Focus is captured by the possibilities we know to fail. What seems to be at stake is one’s ability to express oneself through one’s actions.
If one of the above options determines the situation, the error that happens needs to be seen through the lens of the initial choice. If the desire was to prevent the error from occurring and thus assume that the situation could be controlled, the error easily becomes a source of a sense of failure and frustration. If the priority was to determine who is responsible, reacting to the occurrence of such error results in finding ways to blame someone or something.
Either option serves the ego more than the situation. The focus remains on protecting the ego from noticing that his perception of self may not be the one desired. And thus, it is not coherent with how one sees oneself belong and capable of maintaining that sense of belonging.
What appears in the above are our individual needs for attachment and authenticity, as described by Gabor Maté. As humans, we never stop searching for ways to belong and thus feel attached or connected to other human beings. In this quest, it is our sense of authenticity, that is, to experience ourselves and know who we are, that we will most often feel a necessity to contain.
As we mature, we use the patterns and habits learned until then to grow. It is how avoiding errors becomes the strategy used to prevent our sense of attachment from being at risk. The hope is that securing our sense of attachment will allow us to experience ourselves and thus support our need for authenticity.
That strategy came into being whenever the infant felt the need to work on keeping the relationship with his environment alive. As explained by Gabor Maté, it is work done despite the child’s irreducible need for rest from such work. As we grow and develop, this work transforms itself into how we seek approval from others. Preventing errors becomes how we hope to achieve and secure this approval. Once the error occurs, our reaction is determined by how capable we are of feeling ourselves and our emotions. The less we are, the harder for us to experience ourselves as authentic. Instead, we’ll fall back to our old ego’s strategy to secure attachment. That strategy once served us as infants to reassure our anxious ego and receive external validation. However, that validation was received for corresponding to what our parents expected from us. Sometimes that meant to let go of feeling that connection with ourselves.
