Thank You Auto-Correct: Guilty Journalling

[salixj]

Has auto-correct ever made you feel foolish? Odds are, yes.

It did today. I wished someone a "refuah shelamah" (complete healing, refuah is healing, and shelamah is complete). But auto-correct decided I meant REFUSAL. 

So basically I just wished someone who discovered she had a heart condition, and would need to be in the hospital over Pesach, a complete refusal.

Um, yeah. So not what I wanted. And I didn't see the error until the woman I was making my wishes did, and pointed it out.

She's smart, realized where the  mistake came from, so after facepalming with both hands I just followed by giving the actual wish and hoping she got a good laugh out of it.

Which I do hope happened. 

Of course this isn't the first time I banana-slipped, and we humans have a tendency to do that.

We screw up, sometimes royally, and sometimes to the amusement or bemusement of those around us. And I know this. And I know that not every mistake deserves mortification. 

Yet, well guilt creeps in. How could I not have, how could I have, why did I, why didn't I?

And I mean yeah, there are things I can do, and yes there are excuses why I didn't do it, and yeah to a lot of things.

But wallowing in guilt isn't going to change anything, nor does it help. Imperfections is a human trait.

So again, I turn to my journal and let it all out. Expressing my feelings, my anger at myself, my embarrassment, my self-defense. 

Then I poke deeper. How guilty should I feel? Is my emotional reaction a true reflection of my responsibility? What about my self-defense; is it accurate and reflective of the situation or am I trying to avoid responsibility? If you feel you have hurt someone else ask yourself how you would feel if the shoe were on the other foot? Would you be angry? Sad? How would you feel about the person who "harmed" you? What can I do to recover from the error, and what can I do to prevent this error from happening again?

Now, it is likely I will have auto-correct embarrass me again, and this will be especially true when my emotions are highly involved; my worries for my friend as happened in this case, anger, fear, even joy. My concentration is on the expression of my feelings and thoughts, not on policing my grammar and spelling. Knowing this I can, whenever my emotions are involved, try to take a deep breath before posting anything. Probably a good idea in any case. Two more minutes of time will not change the original post. Perhaps it is best whenever my emotions are running hight to first go to my journal and quickly note how I am feeling, and ask myself what I can do at this point to make things better.

With my emotions discharged, and a plan in hand, I can then respond and have the stamina to read over what I have written to correct any errors. Or I might just tell myself (not in the case above however) that there is no point. I should just ignore and move on.