We’ve all had our Manny Alpert moments.

In 1978, Alpert was an ABC-TV cameraman covering a fund-raiser for the National Hemophilia Foundation in New York’s Manhattan Center ballroom. He was stationed in the balcony overlooking the ballroom floor where University of Pennsylvania student Bob Speca Jr. had spent nine days setting up a maze of 100,000 dominoes. Speca held the record for nonstop domino toppling at 50,000 and planned to break it for a worthy cause.

The crowd of press and onlookers hushed when eight-year-old hemophilia sufferer Michael Murphy stepped forward to topple the first domino. As the small rectangles began dropping, Alpert leaned forward for a better look … and his press pass slipped free. The card tumbled into the maze, setting off a second chain reaction that threatened to ruin the event. And there was nothing Alpert could do to stop it.

Fortunately, Speca was able to quickly step into the maze and isolate the problem. Just over a half-hour later, the Penn student had set a new record by toppling 97,500 dominoes in succession … much to the relief of a still-mortified Manny Alpert.

When we make colossal mistakes, sometimes all we can do is say we’re sorry and move on because continuing to flog ourselves doesn’t serve any positive purpose. Remember these words of wisdom:

“I can pardon everybody’s mistakes except my own.”

—Cato the Elder, Roman statesman

“If we get everything that we want, we will soon want nothing that we get.”

—Vernon Luchies, inner-city pastor

“We all envy other people’s luck.”

—Latin proverb

“To understand is to forgive, even oneself.”

—Alexander Chase, journalist

“Of all the idiots I have met in my life, and the Lord knows that they have not been few or little, I think that I have been the biggest.”

—Isak Dinesen, author

“Failure changes for the better, success for the worse.”

—Marcus Annaeus Seneca, Roman writer and rhetorician