Growing up, perfectionism and hard work were revered in my home. The unspoken rule was simple: if you do something, do it “right” or don’t do it at all. There was very little room for error. And if a mistake happened, I hoped, almost prayed, that it would go unnoticed. That kind of environment doesn’t just shape behavior; it shapes your inner voice. It teaches you to anticipate criticism before it arrives and to shrink before anyone else can make you feel small. During those years, I was on a Lufthansa flight from Bombay to New York with my mother. It was a long journey for her to undertake with a young child; I must have been six or seven at the time. I don’t remember most of that trip, but one moment stayed with me in surprising detail. In this week’s blog, I revisit that moment not because it was dramatic, but because today, it shapes how I understand mistakes, failure, and what it means to be human.
I was a clumsy child. Truthfully, I still am a walking hazard but slightly more aware of my surroundings. Back then, I was seated in the aisle, restless and uncomfortable, my ears aching from being 35,000 feet in the air. At some point, I was handed a plastic cup with a drink, probably water or juice, I can’t remember. I was slouched into my seat, bored and irritable, shifting around in an attempt to get comfortable. And then it happened.
I tipped the cup over. Time slowed down in that way it only does when you know something has gone wrong. My eyes widened. My body froze. And almost instantly, a string of thoughts rushed in:
Mom is going to kill me.
What is wrong with me?
Why do I always create trouble?
She’s going to be so mad.
What stands out to me now isn’t the mistake, but it’s how quickly I turned on myself.
The cup lay there, overturned. I didn’t touch it. I didn’t call for help. I just sat there, silently panicking, trying to figure out how to undo something that had already happened, all the while hoping my mother wouldn’t notice. What a futile wish, because of course she noticed.
She wasn’t pleased. I braced myself for what would come next, but before anything else, she called for the flight attendant. And that’s where something unexpected happened.
In all my years of travel, I haven’t come across a kinder flight attendant in my life. She didn’t rush in or react with irritation. Instead, she knelt down to my height and looked at the overturned cup with genuine curiosity. There was wonder in her voice when she pointed out something I hadn’t even noticed: despite the cup being flipped, no liquid had spilled.
She was impressed. Not disappointed. Not annoyed but impressed. She called over a few of her colleagues, and instead of reprimanding me, they shared in her amazement. They marveled at how the cup had tipped without creating a bigger mess, as though I had performed some kind of trick.
They cleaned up my mess calmly, without complaint, without making me feel like I had done something wrong. And perhaps most importantly, they didn’t make me feel like I was the problem. To a child raised in an environment where mistakes felt heavy and consequential, this was unfamiliar and almost disorienting.
When I look back on that moment now, it feels like a quiet interruption in a narrative I had already begun to believe about myself:
That mistakes meant something about who I was.
That errors were proof of my inadequacy.
That being careful wasn’t enough. I had to be flawless.
Years later, the above has changed and so has my view of the incident. Back then, that flight attendant offered a different lens. Not through advice. Not through correction. But through her response.
There are a few things I find myself returning to when I think about that moment.
We don’t just experience mistakes, we become them
What struck me most was how quickly I became the mistake. It wasn’t just, “I spilled something.” It was, “What is wrong with me?”
That shift, from action to identity, is subtle, but powerful. And many of us carry it well into adulthood. We don’t just fail at something. We feel like failures.
That day, nothing about the situation changed. The cup still tipped over. But the way it was held by someone else prevented me from collapsing into it completely.
Compassion creates space where shame contracts it
My instinct was to shrink, to disappear into the seat, to make myself as small as possible.
Her instinct was to expand the moment, to bring curiosity, lightness, even a bit of humor into it. It didn’t erase what happened, but it changed the emotional weight of it. And that’s what compassion does. It doesn’t deny reality, but it makes it easier to stay with it. I am finally on the path of self-compassion that allows me to feel the gifts of kindness she bestowed upon me all those years ago.
The way we are treated becomes the way we treat ourselves
For a long time, my inner dialogue mirrored the environment I grew up in, which critical, impatient, and unforgiving. Self-compassion didn’t come naturally. In fact, it felt forced, even dishonest at first. But over time, something shifted.
I began to notice that being harsh with myself didn’t make me better; it made me afraid. Afraid to try, to fail, to step outside what felt safe. Compassion, on the other hand, didn’t make me complacent. It made me willing. Willing to take risks. Willing to grow. Willing to try again. In many ways, I’ve spent years learning to become that flight attendant for myself.
Not all mistakes take away. Some give back
Looking back, some of the moments I once labeled as my “biggest mistakes” have quietly shaped the most meaningful parts of my life.
They’ve brought me closer to my parents in ways I didn’t think were possible. They’ve shown me where I needed to grow, regulate, and take responsibility. They’ve given me the clarity to walk away from people and situations that stifled me. At the time, these mistakes felt like failures. In hindsight, they were necessary turning points.
There’s also something else that stays with me. That flight attendant didn’t know me. She had no context about my upbringing, my fears, or the narrative already forming in my mind. And yet, in a brief interaction, she responded in a way that softened something in me. It makes me wonder how often our smallest, most casual responses to others carry more weight than we realize. And how often the way we show up for ourselves is simply a continuation of what we’ve learned or unlearned.
I still think about that moment sometimes not because of the spilled drink, but because of what didn’t spill over. The shame. The fear. The belief that I had done something irreparable.
It could have gone that way. It often did, but that lovely lady saved the day. Her kindness has stayed with me, because it’s a constant reminder that there isn’t just one way to respond to failure. It’s a reminder that not everything has to be heavy. It’s a reminder that sometimes the most meaningful shifts don’t come from fixing what went wrong, but from changing how gently we hold it.
I don’t know where that wonderful lady is today, but I thank her for giving me one of those moments when I was seen, heard, and treated like a child.
This is my small corner where I share what I’m still learning how to hold. Somehow, you might find parts of yourself in it, especially the messy and quiet ones you don’t always show. If you see yourself here, you’re not alone, because we are all working on coming home to ourselves.
My 5-minute guide for when you’re feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or lost. Reset your energy and reconnect with yourself. Bonus audio guide included. Available here: Energy Guide
All the best,
Chaitni