In a world of “free” platforms, it is becoming increasingly difficult to learn from mistakes, as everyone is in the spotlight and the lights can be blinding.
Most people are forced to live so cautiously and speak so measuredly that they might as well neither live nor speak. The world is growing more unforgiving of error in “trial and error” and have flipped the trial in “trial and error” to trials for whoever makes a mistake.
This is not an excuse for poor behaviour. By all means we must hold people to some ethical codes for society to hold. But we must correct deviant behaviours with love, so that everyone is unafraid to express themselves and be moulded through feedback and reflection.
The therapists chair should not be the only place that people are allowed to be truly self and as such, truly free.
If our lived experience is mostly a shared experience, surely we all have bad behaviours. This is why we focus so much on others, because if we focus on self, we will not be able to live with ourselves, considering how deeply flawed and hypocritical we mostly are.
The more I read about cancel culture, online shaming or the mob that dictates what we can say and in extension what we can think, the more I realise that the most relevant prayer for all beings remains, “May our mistakes never be televised”.
– Osasu Oviawe