How do you feel when you make a costly mistake? I’ve done it recently with a DIY project. There were disbelief, anger, and self/ other-blaming but gladly, only momentarily. I’ve practiced radical acceptance and surrendered immediately—if the Universe needs £1000, it will have it either way. If it makes you feel better, you can hope that it will return it with interest. It usually does. I focused on lesson-learning instead.

First, I learned that I should have listened to my intuition when it strongly told me not to go ahead. Instead, I allowed myself to be influenced by other people’s opinions and circumstances. I should have defended my position better and explored various perspectives on why it was a good idea instead of just giving in.

Second, this experience has helped me uncover yet another shadow, blind spot, in me—a preference for cutting corners rather than doing due diligence and thinking everything through. I often sort of hope to wing it. This behaviour is likely fear-based, and whenever authorities are involved (a planning department in this case), I tend to be defiant, rather than research and follow rules. Lesson learned. Do your homework and don’t think you know better/ expect to wing it.

Finally, whenever something goes wrong, I remind myself that it’s the guru saying hi 🙂 It’s easy to believe in guru’s grace/ Universe/ God when everything goes well, how do you feel now? Is your faith strong enough? Do you remember? It is only money after all, if guru/ Universe/ God needs it, give it.

Overall, I was surprised by how easily we took it. Ten years ago we would have fumed for weeks, not letting it go, complained, sought ways to get compensated, etc. etc. This time we let it go, almost immediately, finally did our research and accepted the alternative. We are still on budget, we’ll just have a different floor from the one we wanted. Ram Ram.