A child is given some questions & asked to tally her answers with the answers from an answer sheet. The answer sheet is a control sheet. It is external. At other times, when the child is given a puzzle to solve; until all the pieces come together, she would not have achieved the desired result. In this case, the control of error is within the apparatus (the puzzle in this case).
Life is just the same 🙂
When we are young, our control of error is outside of us – teachers parents – show us the way, explain right-wrong, they are constantly guiding, correcting, and if we are lucky, at times even asking us to exercise our own controls, make mistakes, err and learn.
As we mature, with time & experience, the locus of this control of error shifts inside us (or at least it should shift inside us). If we recognize it, we are able to sharpen it, develop it, nurture it, use it for growth. You know that you have it when:
you are able to regulate your own actions,
you are able to pause and think and criticize yourself,
you are able to apply your value system to your life situations.
We feel ‘not right’ until the error is removed & this self directed input is enough to keep us on the right path.
External controls of error now become redundant / less. Relationships at this point become support ecosystems helping to sharpen the individual controls of error. On the contrary, relationships that try to be the control of error, often become tenuous. For instance, a father and son relationship when the son is 10years old versus when the son is 25, needs to be very different. The restrictions on the intern at the office and the Senior manager must be different. Independence and space in life is often a result of how developed or under-developed are our controls of error. Temptation, our needs and our greed are also a function of our internal controls of error!
What do you think?
Picture credits: Nandini (11 years old)
Charushilla Connect 