The Meaning of "Mistake"

I am an "give" addict. The fancy term that gets bandied about these days is "enabler" but that really isn't fitting for the likes of me. I'm more of what you'd call an "un-abler". This means that I give and give and give of myself in order to make sure that the person on the receiving end becomes "unable" to live without me. I give until I am indespensable. I give until I become superbly needed. I give until my well is bone dry and I find myself deeply exhausted, desparately depleted and dreadfully despairing. And what then?

Then, the pendulum hits it's still point and begins its descent into "take". For whatever reason to take is the only antidote that I can see. And so desparate am I to recover anything that feels like a sensation of "getting" I usually begin clawing and grasping and gasping my way into a type of insanity that always seems to lead to a whopping "mis-take". I try to take what I believe I'm owed for my "selfless service" and I miss the mark by a universal mile.

Here are my questions: Are all of our mistakes simply a mis-taking of something that someone (or life) was trying to offer to us? Or maybe it is a matter of mis-taking that which never was being offered but we felt entitled to take it? Is it that we either took too much or not enough because we weren't able to understand how to receive a message in the right way or at the right time? How often do we miss opportunities to receive the gifts offered to us in a day and then end up feeling like nothing good ever comes our way or that we are totally unappreciated? Maybe this last question leads us to the biggest "mis-take" of all as we grasp for all the things that are not being offered and are blind to all that is....