A business executive wanted to encourage his staff to take more risks; to understand that life at its best or fullest, means not always playing it safe. At a staff meeting he passed out little pieces of paper, each stamped "Forgiveness Coupon." Each employee received two coupons.
He told the gathered group, "We keep telling you to take risks. But if you are really going to risk or try or dream or love, you are going to make mistakes. These coupons give you permission to make a mistake, free and clear, without fear of retribution, blaming or scapegoating." The staff listened flabbergasted.
The manager added, "And each of you is expected to use both coupons by the end of the year."
An hour later, a staff member handed a coupon to the executive, "I would like to use my first one."
"What on earth did you do?"
"Five minutes ago I Xeroxed ten more copies."

I'm with that guy.
Two coupons a year are not nearly enough.
I needed that many just this week.
Mistake. Error. Blunder. Transgression. Screw-up. Call it what you want. (There is no doubt we will even swear it was not our fault. Like Adam and Eve said a long time ago, "The snake made us do it.")

We trip up and make bad choices. Sometimes, we can even see it coming. And then there is a tear; a mis-communication, misunderstanding, hard feelings, hurt. Or something inside ruptures. And we curse our frailty, our vulnerability, our humanity.
"How did I get here?" we ask. "I did not sign up for this." Above all else, we are certain we are failures.

I was inculcated early in a religious faith predicated on perfection, or the promise of paradise. The ultimate goal was "getting out of Dodge." The "coupon" was my ticket to heaven, away from the complications and struggles of this life.
(I still feel the tug of that oppressive theology, reminding me that one, "you are nothing, a worm, and therefore not to be trusted." And two, "this world is meaningless. So delight and wonder and presence take a back seat to 'making the grade,' 'looking good,' and 'keeping your nose clean.' Or as one friend told me, "My parent's most used line, 'Don't ever embarrass us or God.'")

In the movie, The Mission, Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert De Niro) loses his lover to his brother, and then kills his brother in a pique of rage. His world is on tilt.  He is visited in his cell by Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons), who is told "He won't see anybody. I think he wants to die."
In the cell Mendoza tells Fr. Gabriel, "You don't know what I am."
Fr. Gabriel, "Yes. You are a mercenary. You are a slave trader. And you killed your bother. I know. But you loved him, although you chose a strange way to show it."
Mendoza, "For me there is no redemption."  

Some of us have felt that way. Like there is no reason to go on. It is made all the more thorny if we see our imperfection as an enemy (predicament or obstacle) to be overcome.
We do not see Grace.

We do not see Love.
We see only our shortcomings, and not our potential.
And we live with fear. Or regret. 

Charles Francis Adams, grandson of John Adams and son of John Quincy Adams, served as a Massachusetts state senator and ambassador to Great Britain under Abraham Lincoln.  Very conscientious about keeping a daily journal, he encouraged his children to do the same.  While no encyclopedia makes mention of Charles' family, his diary does.  One entry reads: "Went fishing with my son today--a day wasted."

Another diary, that of his son Brook Adams, gives us a different perspective: "Went fishing with my father today. The most wonderful day of my life." 
What do you do with the fact, when, in hindsight, you realize that your Father wasn't really there?  And what does that fuel?