[marklang500]

I'm looking for input on how to overcome regret. For example. Lets say you cut someone off on the highway. It wasn't intentional, but you did it, you felt bad, and then as they pass they shake thier head and give you a glare.

Now, if they were to give the finger, then my regret would be turned to anger, but let's say they don't. Instead, they play thier hand perfectly, inflicting the maximum guilt possible without turning themselves into ugly people.

These sort of situations don't happen often, but they do happen. And when they do, I have a real hard time forgiving myself, because I know that out in the world there are complete strangers that haven't forgiven me. Not only have they not forgiven me, but they consider me incompetent on some level.

Seriously, they do. They have one thing to judge you on, one instance where you displayed incompetence. So forever to them you will just be the guy that doesn't know what he's doing.

Occasionally, this sort of thing happens with someone you DO know, and then the guilt is 10 times worse.

This weekend I was refereeing a 10 year olds football game, and I made a horrible call. And there was no possible way of fixing it. I basically robbed a kid from a whole lot of glory that he deserved. It was a bad call. So, the parents kinda shook thier heads, a little booing. Then suddenly a voice yelled my name. It was a guy I knew through business. He yelled, "Come on, Mark! He was not down! Let 'em play!"

I wish that kid had ignored my whistle and ran it in for the touchdown. At least then I would have been able to reverse my call. But he stopped short, and they didn't convert it in their remaining downs.

So it has been killing me all weekend. The embarrassment. I emailed an apology to the one guy I knew, but I haven't heard back. Here's a guy that knows me, knows my business, and now thinks I'm incompetent on some certain level. How can I let go of that? I already sent the apology, and the admition that it was a bad call. But there is no way I can fix it.

Uhhg. Here's the worst part. I always feel a sort of double standard is created when this sort of thing happens. Like now, if I am playing golf with that guy, he'll point out my errors in "golf ettiquette" more often than he would if I hadn't made the bad call on the football field. You know what I mean? It's like if you goof up, you suddenly become open game for any sort of criticism, even unrelated to football.

(I was playing golf with some guys that were much better than me once. We had all been standing behind whoever was teeing off on ALL the previous holes. Then came a hole where I found myself standing in the same spot as before, but this time the other guys happen to have been standing down by the carts. So the guy teeing off stopped and said, "I'm going to ask you to step over there". Of course, I said "Oh sure!" and I moved. But it p|ssed me off. It was literally no different. It really didn't have anything to do with his periferal vision, but more likely because I was annoying him with my round of 95 while they were shooting 79 he took the opportunity to smack me for standing in a bad spot. It is a double standard reserved for people that you respect vs. those that you don't respect. But I digress.)

The real issue of this thread is the guilt over goofing up, and saving face with the people you know, and gaining thier respect after a goof up.