Mistakes are like pretentious wolves. The it-will-pass-and-you’ll-get-over-it bit is hardly ever true. We had it easy when we were kids, like having a reset button. You make a mistake, cry about it a little, and move on. The consequences were minimal and people won’t accuse of anything but being innocent.

All of it, of course, eventually changes.

Making mistakes become dangerous grounds by the time you get off college. You make a mistake, wallow in regret and self-pity, convince yourself to move on, get absolutely scared of the future, and wallow in regret all over again. There are no reset buttons, no shielded place to run for cover, and no instant redemption by praying to every single saint and patron. People will accuse you of being incapable and label you with adjectives that will dig you a grave deeper than you imagined.

The mess is yours to clean. Every mess leaves a spot you can never clean. Every spot attaches itself to you in a set of heavy chains that wound you and destroy your confidence. Beliefs become a matter of life and death, you-against-the-world kind of thing. You have to fight for it or let it go. Decisions turn into holy grails. Everything is decided upon with both caution and absolute madness.

But the thing is, they don’t give out manuals on how to fix broken selves. And the get-going-and-move-on bit of advice is dangerous territory. No ever really got out of there unscarred.

So how does one overcome growing pains of this kind?