Everyone has flaws. Mine is that when I’m exhausted or have a trillion things running through my mind or am fixated on one particular thing, I tend to drop the ball.
Sometimes, I am able to reverse my error. No harm done, and life goes on as usual. Other times, however…
So, for some inexplicable reason, my debit card got spoilt, and I couldn’t withdraw money from the ATM. I called up the bank and got a replacement card.
In hindsight, I shouldn’t have activated my replacement card in the minutes before I withdrew money from the ATM. My pin didn’t work. It threw me off guard. I then realised I had to reset my pin and proceeded to do so. All this mental manoeuvring must have overwhelmed my attention span.
I forgot to take the $80 from the ATM.
The thing is, I wasn’t even that tired. But because I was intent on getting my debit card to work, I forgot the most crucial step: taking the goddarn fiat!
In the grand scheme of things, $80 isn’t catastrophic. It amounts to one week of my lunch money or one month’s worth of shitposting content creation at Stacker News.
It sucked. Things like this have happened to me before. I once left my bag (which contained two library books) at the entrance of my son’s school. In the end, I couldn’t find it and had to pay for the books.
And how can I forget the time when I almost lost my staff pass? Luckily, the next morning, I went back to the playground my son frequented and managed to find my pass lying forlornly on the floor. So, shit like this happens.
All because I’m a scatterbrained person!
Before I could ruminate any further, a sudden thought flashed across my mind. “You know what, Sensei? I’m bound to forget things and lose money. It is what it is. I shouldn’t beat myself over it.”
No doubt, I should be more vigilant in the future and prevent such things from happening ever again. On the other hand, I have the foresight to recognise that they will happen - even if rarely - because it’s an innate part of my character.
I think just making space for these inevitabilities to happen made me feel better. Next time, I just got to make sure that I ground myself and focus thoroughly when it comes to money matters.
So, that’s it. Owning my costly flaws. It’s a bit embarrassing making my weaknesses public here, but writing this is therapeutic. I can move on with my day after publishing this. Because all good stories end on a good note:
A bad day for the ego is a good day for the soul.
Thank you for reading.