None of us is ever willing to stand up and say, I was wrong! Instead, we're constantly and forever willing to find an excuse, something or someone to blame.

Not long ago, I said to a friend of mine: "Mistakes are natural and unavoidable in life. But learning from those mistakes is a decision and a choice that one needs to make." You can never grow wiser, mature and learn from your mistakes for as long as you're not willing to be brutally honest with yourself and accept when you have done wrong. Allow me to share a piece of advice with you: "You can fail to take responsibility for your actions but you can never escape the consequences of failing to take responsibility for your actions..."

There are so many things that have happened in life, so many relations (relationships, friendships, and business relationships) that came to an end, so many dreams or goals that didn't come true; and deep down in the heart of your hearts, you know that you could have done better. You know for a fact that you were solely and single-handedly responsible for how things turned out, but because you have obtained a PhD QUALIFICATION CUM LAUDE in making excuses and always shifting the blame, you will never admit. And for as long as you're not prepared to have an honest deeper conversation with yourself and do self-introspection, you will keep on repeating the same mistakes over and over again.  And as the saying goes: "There is nothing wrong with making a mistake but there's something wrong with repeating the same mistake over and over again."

If ever we are to be the great men and women of stature in our societies, then we need to have open discussions with ourselves. Just pause for a moment, look and think back in your life, diagnose what went wrong in your previous endeavours, realise where you fell short and come up with a solution to rectify it, so that moving forward in life, you don't repeat the same mistake. It's true that no one has the power to judge but only God; however, you can judge yourself, so do a deeper self-introspection, judge yourself and mend the wrongs you have done. Look at your life presently, look at your relations, honestly assess how well you have been doing in them, and if you have been falling short of the expected threshold, improve! Look, no one is perfect and no one will ever get close to being perfect, hence we constantly have to do self-introspection and improve where we have to and maintain the good that we are doing.

Each and every one of us is gifted and good at something, do self-introspection, realize what you good at and perfect that craft! Be honest with yourself, so that you avoid biting more than you can chew. I have seen so many people choke in life, not because they didn't have what it takes to do it, but because they were not honest with themselves. Because they wanted to be a jack of all trades and master of none. It doesn't work and will never do.

Today being MEND_DAY; let's mend our lives so that they can be what we want them to be. Let's mend our ways and do right by each other.

HAPPY MEND_DAY

Fannie Zim is an admitted and a practicing attorney of the High Court of South Africa and a director at Zim Incorporated Attorneys.