Yesterday I made a stupid mistake. I know I’m making more of this than necessary and writing about it will be a good reminder to me that it is not a big mistake, just a stupid temporary, never to be forgotten mistake! I’ve got an overseas website that I need to get into from time to time. The criteria for entering is a strict combination of pin and password. I have two shots at getting it right and if I don’t I’ve got to phone the website people in the UK to help me. Yesterday, they got it wrong too and now they have to snail mail me a new verification code so that I can get back in! I was sooooo frustrated, but I think the thing that confused and baffled me the most was why was I making so many mistakes with this pin/password combination. I always put it in very very carefully and it randomly took it and randomly did not. I was in the website on Saturday and Tuesday I couldn’t enter.
Pic from rtfq.net
Then last night when I was showering, the penny dropped.
The password is made up of numbers and letters. They never ask for the full password. They will ask for 4 characters of the ten digit password eg digit 1 or digit 4 etc. So if my password was 1A2B3C4D and they asked for digit 1, I put in 1. If they asked for digit 4, I put in B and so on. Except B is not a digit, it’s a letter.
My brain was interpreting digits as characters. It’s not a ten digit password, it’s a ten character password!
I was so annoyed with myself.
What I have learned as I have got older, is that we make mistakes whatever our age. When Julian and I walked down that steep mountainside below Chapman’s Peak, my comments were if we fell and had to be carried off in a helicopter, they will say we are far too old to be scrambling down steep mountain paths. But, they would also say that if we were in our 20s. “Young and immature!” I remember making many mistakes in my 30s and though I was older and wiser in my 40s, I made mistakes during that decade too.
I’m very aware that the next generation is coming up behind me, quicker, more agile, more mentally capable. I can see that I think slower than they do. One round of 30 seconds very quickly highlighted that change!
Yet they too make some silly mistakes!
We are all human!
When these things do happen, the one thing for which I am grateful is that I can safely say no one has died as a result of my mistake. I used to say the same thing when I made monumental blunders on air. Humiliating? Yes. Life threatening? No. I think that train of thought comes out of a nursing background where errors can cost lives. It makes my password problem melt into insignificance.
I’m only 51 and have many fruitful years ahead of me…
Psalm 92:14
They will still yield fruit in old age; They shall be full of sap and very green
These are the days!
Keep the smile going.
God bless you!
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂