Nothing is so easy as to committing a mistake and nothing is so difficult as to as to accepting it but nothing is so full of pride too when you have accepted what you have done wrong. The inspiration for this article as you already must have guessed from the title and having connected it to the recent happenings in sports world, is the news of ball tampering by Australian cricketers. They did a mistake, they cheated, right there in the middle of the ground. They tried to play against the rules in front of hundreds of people watching them live on the field and many more thousands, worshipping them on the television. But now? Now everyday there’s a news that some cricket player has come out in their support and has urged the common people on their behalf. Such a reaction from the same fraternity that they belong to could have been foreseen to some extent but even the cricket fans don’t seem to have hard feelings towards them now. The sole reason for this? Acceptance, period. They accepted their mistake without any frills or excuses, they regretted their decisions and came out clean in front of the world. And that way they won even when they had lost.
Well, this article is not a motivation for someone to keep going with his/her wrongdoings, accept them and move on to commit them again. But it definitely shows the incentives of being brave enough to move in a better direction. Another example right in front of us is the stains on the reputation of the once mighty, Facebook. The technology giant didn’t try to get away with the problems that their platform created but they faced them and even initiated a debate on the matter to get the most inputs from the users. Surely there are people on both the sides in this case but what is more important and will be even more interesting to see is that how this full of world-class capabilities company leverage its expertise to find a solution to the problem of fake news and its implications.
When you accept your mistake in the face of allegations being put, you disarm yourself as well as the enemy. Isn’t it analogous to the way Rajputs used to fight? One famous dialog that we come across in almost every historical film made on fair fighting Indian Rajputs is that they don’t attack the disarmed. Same happens today. When you have lowered your guard because it was your deliberate mistake after all, you are disarmed. There’s nothing left to say or do for the opposite party. Maybe they can lessons to you for future which you might deem as an unnecessary ‘lecture’ but actually, the need is to listen to it with all humility because that’s what their anger has turned to now, they are telling you what wrong you did and how could it be avoided, they are on your side!
By: Neha Agarwal