What am I doing?

It is remarkable how quick we are to ask ourselves, "What am I doing wrong?" We are so eager to "fix" ourselves or to be "fixed" that we are eager to seek out flaws and errors so that we can be improved.

When do you remember improving by noticing precisely what you were doing wrong? When do you remember studying your errors and coming away with a pattern for success?

Of course there are many, many times when our expectations of ourselves do not match our accomplishments, times when we make bad judgments or do the wrong thing. There is no suspense: being human means that we do things wrong.

What is mysterious and frequently lovely are the surprising ways in which we get it right. When we ask simply, "What am I doing?" we can look at a situation and see that we have been ingenious in harvesting benefits from difficulties and challenges. We can see that we are good at holding on tight and being uniquely and strongly ourselves, even when that means giving up the easier benefits of conventional success.

Would it be nice to have someone who is infinitely resourceful, innovative and persistent working for you? Perhaps you already do. The place you will find him/her is often the last place you would think to look: Yeats called it "the foul rag and bone shop of the heart." More simply, it is the place where you look for what you did wrong.

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