In the 1997 film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Austin Powers and his sidekick, Vanessa Kensington (played by Mike Myers and Elizabeth Hurley, respectively) are operating a steamroller for reasons I don’t recall. Meanwhile, a security officer stands in the path of the slow-moving steamroller, facing his inevitable death.

The gag, of course, is that this guy has all the time in the world to get out of the path of the steamroller, but he doesn’t.

I think of this bit surprisingly often because it is the perfect metaphor for most of the poor decisions I’ve made. While I was doing the thing, however well-meaning it was, I knew I shouldn’t have been doing it. I saw a mile away that it wasn’t going to be a good idea, and yet I didn’t course correct.

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My mind was blown when I figured out I could fix mistakes in my knitting.

Even if I saw a mistake several rows back, I didn’t have to rip everything out. I didn’t even have to rip out all the rows between me and my mistake. I could simply release a stitch or two, do some surgery, and then it would be like the mistake never happened.

Since I make lots of mistakes, this is something I’ve gotten pretty good at.

Of course, there are some mistakes for which repair would take several hours — or it’s just straight-up impossible. Hopefully these mistakes are also in the category of “no one would notice this but the pattern designer” or “I have to hunt to find that twisted stitch anyway.” I let them go.

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You’re practicing some Bach or your tennis serve or a purl stitch…and then you hit a wrong note, whiff the ball, or drop a stitch off of the needle.

At this moment, you have a choice! Do you:

a) Tell yourself, “It’s okay! You got this.” or

b) Tsk yourself?

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“The bottom of the nose belongs down here, and the eyebrows should hit here. You can improve the perspective on the house in the background by incorporating these lines. Also, why is the sky a strip of blue at the top?”

We know that there are developmental stages that children’s artwork goes through as they learn, so we don’t expect kids to draw like adult professionals. Dena Luchsinger makes the case that it’s just as unhelpful to a growing writer to point out all of their mistakes.

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Wouldn’t it be great if you could transmit all of your wisdom and experience to your child?

You could help your kid avoid making the same mistakes you made. They would then benefit from your knowledge and make better decisions.

Unfortunately, your can’t just plug your thumb drive into their built-in USB port and transfer your knowledge files. The download will fail. The ungrateful brats don’t want to listen!

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Maybe it’s from mom. Or dad. Or grandpa or grandma…or their grandma and grandpa.

It probably goes back farther than that, because it’s so ingrained in most of us that we don’t even see it. To paraphrase David Foster Wallace, it’s like water to a fish — so ubiquitous we’re unaware of it.

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