Accidents are a part of life.
Like when I put one of my wife’s good pots in the dishwasher assuming it was dishwasher safe, or the time she dented one of our car rims when she got too close to the curb.
Accidents are a part of life.
Many times they’re not done maliciously to hurt another person, cause them any kind of grief or inconvenience. Sometimes they just happen like the examples I mentioned above.
But the accident is made somewhat easier to digest when we take responsibility for our actions, rather than trying to cover them up as though they never happened.
I recently found a vase of decorative grasses, which I brought from home, missing from my desk at work. I searched around my office, but was unable to locate anything but a single piece of glass. Now I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but I’d say that clue tells me that my vase was somehow broken and disposed of.
There was no note or explanation; no apology for the accidental destruction of personal property; no one taking any responsibility at all for the mishap.
It’s obvious they were simply trying to cover their tracks – hoping I would never notice its absence.
But as Hubert Selby Jr. once said, “Eventually we all have to accept full and total responsibility for our actions, everything we have done, and have not done.”
Accidents are part of life – I can’t stress that enough.
But taking responsibly for your actions is a sign of someone’s character.
I’ll probably never find out how my vase met its demise, and that’s a shame for it only further perpetuates our existence in a world which lacks the strength and morality to admit when we’ve done something wrong.
Michael Edwards once remarked that “Good men prefer to be accountable.” Let’s hope one turns up in this situation.