Making Mistakes. Do you learn from them?

[LightSun]

Mistakes: What is the value in making mistakes in life's journey? Do you learn from your mistakes? Describe the process on how you learn best from important life lessons. Are you afraid of making a mistake or are you bold and experiment by taking chances?


Quote:
"Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently." Henry Ford (1863 – 1947)


Quote:
"I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge." Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971)

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I learn from mistakes all the time. I think I used to be afraid of making a mistake, but now I think it's better to risk it rather than avoid doing anything at all.

 

[Cellmold]

Yes.

Unless I make the same mistake twice, in which case, no.

The process is based on how efficient my memory is at that moment in time, how tired I am or confident etc....& whether or not I can see what I did wrong.

More precisely there has to be a willingness to want to learn from a mistake; people often complain about repeated failures, about which they make no effort to change. So I guess throw emotional weight and gumption into that mix too.

Personally I tend to obsess a lot over how to learn from or correct a mistake and I like to have lots of goes since I'm an extremely slow learner.

Unfortunately circumstances don't always allow for that. Plus how many chances should someone get? Better to find out if you can even afford to make that mistake in the first place, anticipate.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Stupid people don't learn from mistakes, smart people learn from mistakes, while brilliant people learn from other people's mistakes.


Perhaps one of better ones.

 

[Maou]

I grew up learning from my parents mistakes and ended up really easily being a better human, and not fucking shit up like them all the time. I am good at avoiding mistakes, but yeah I also have been one to simply be passive and risk free. Which I am trying to overcome, but it is difficult because of anxiety.

 

[Nomendei]

I do, but I was told I learn the wrong things out of them…

 

[Starry]

I learn from mistakes all the time. I think I used to be afraid of making a mistake, but now I think it's better to risk it rather than avoid doing anything at all.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. One of my favorite sayings is “Failure is not the opposite of success - it is a part of it.”

 

[The Cat]

What is the value in making mistakes in life's journey?

I don't know anymore. I used to think it was an important part of living life, an inevitable side effect of actions taken in a world so much bigger than me with nuances no one can fully understand. But now? I dunno. Maybe it's just something we tell ourselves to make us feel better about all the ways we fuck up. Ourselves, others, we come into this world, grow up in it, and see it get a little more rough for wear, nostalgia is a lie that we're brought up to believe in, so does anyone really learn anything or do we all just pick something that makes our brain scream less and say: Sure. It's important that happened because...I dont know...

Do you learn from your mistakes?

Some of them. I dont stick pennies in light sockets. I dont try to breathe under water. But then again, other things? No. I dont learn from all my mistakes, I still sometimes cling to this absurd notion that there's somehow a way things should be. That people are less shitty than everything you hear in the news makes it out to be, that people are more than a hairs breath from tearing each other to shreds... That there's some sort of value inherent in mercy. The silly stupid things that matter to people, do matter because someone cares about them. That there's hope of fixing things in my life that are broken. That when you take a hit, you get up and get back into the fight. I still hold out hope. That I'm not just a slow poison. So I learn from some and not others.

Describe the process on how you learn best from important life lessons.

I don't understand the question and I'm feeling honest enough to not try to pretend that I understand how to answer it let alone how to do it in life. If I have a process it's reflexive not cognizant as far as I know.

Are you afraid of making a mistake or are you bold and experiment by taking chances?

Of course I'm afraid of making mistakes. I grew up in an environment where mistakes didn't exist. Every action had one of two outcomes either it was perfect and every thing was fine. Or it wasn't and there was no excuse. So I learned to fear mistakes. But it's never stopped me from making them. At a certain point you realize. If I'm fucked no matter what I do, I might as well do something that seems like a good idea at the time. I don't really know how to ease into things irl so I just sort of throw myself into life, because I grew up seeing what happens to people who don't. There are no certainties in life, safety and security are a lie as far as I can tell. There are no certainties in life apart from the one that says one day you're numbers up. So I might as well try to look on the bright side of life...

 

[Peter Deadpan]

[MENTION=30038]Gentleman Jack[/MENTION] - I have similar perspectives on self-analysis and the things we tell ourselves. It all seems rather romanticized, to a point where there can't possibly be a singular reason for why we do things. Yet there we sit with our pens and paper, or just our shower thoughts, weaving a web of fanciful excuses. What if we stripped all attempts to philosophically analyze ourselves and just said "I don't like that I did that, there is no excuse, I commit to change now".

Why can't it be that easy?
Don't answer that.
Rinse. Repeat.

 

[Starry]

I’m on my phone and don’t do well with quoting but the first part of Jack’s post made me think of it... One thing that I do notice is how often people claim having made a mistake when in reality the “failure” was completely out of their hands/not a result of anything they did “wrong”. The opposite it true as well. But for this thread I’m considering how many people beat themselves up for what in essence is like...*not being able to predict the future*!or something.

 

[Yuurei]

Yes...and no. I’m incredibly stubborn. I learn but sometimes don’t care. If I really don’t want to do something the way it’s “supposed to be.” I wont. I’ll continue to insist on doing it “ my” way even if it takes longer and I hurt myself.

My husband describes me as “ The sort of person who sticks thier hand on a hot stove because It will give up before I do[/.”I
I’m not really proud if that. Just amused.

 

[Starry]

I guess I don’t quite know how people are defining a mistake. I don’t think of a mistake as being “I drove drunk and killed 5 people”. I always think of them as fuck-ups that ultimately only impacts the fucker-upper via loss or embarrassment or both. Others are only inconvenienced if they experience anything negative at all.

I don’t think it’s about denial...feeling grateful for a learning opportunity...or feeling grateful that you’re strong enough not to be crippled by the total embarrassment you just experienced...

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I try to figure out why I made the mistake in the first place. It usually has to do with a wrong perception or assumption. I made a mistake recently by sleeping in my car, but then a couple of people who care about me explained why it is actually dangerous. I learned from that mistake, but also tried to figure out why it seemed safe to me and why I was so determined to do it. I now know why (won't go into it here), and I will be careful about getting into that state of mind again.

 

[Forever]

For something to be a mistake, it has to be in relation to a rule-based or moral system.

Of course there are mistakes in task oriented things as well or if you are wanting to be a wonderful person in whatever craft you do. So there are achievement based mistakes.

It is hard for me to learn for what others consider a mistake for me. For if we are subject to everyone else’s morality, we’ll never improve since everyone has a different interpretation of how to best live one’s life.

But when I know what I did was a mistake, I learn from it. (Speaking from moral/societal based)

And we all make mistakes doing our job or tasks and nor sometimes can they be avoided easily and we just move on.

 

[rav3n]

Sure I learn but it depends on whether or not the mistake is worth caring about, in order to adjust accordingly. I'm not afraid to make mistakes since humans are resilient and after what I've gone through in my life, not a lot gets me down, never mind keeping me down.

 

[Starry]

[MENTION=26163]Consilience[/MENTION]...TypoC just froze for me because I hit submit on a post you were apparently deleting...possibly at the same exact time. That was good stuff too. I still must fight magical thinking on a daily basis and suffer from one and two on that list

Whoops...I also think people beat themselves up for mistakes...and/or life problems that are unavoidable because somewhere along the line someone taught them this. (Taught them that they were to blame for everything...or that failure was not an option etc.)

 

[1487610420]

what are mistakes

 

[Tilt]

[MENTION=26163]Consilience[/MENTION]...TypoC just froze for me because I hit submit on a post you were apparently deleting...possibly at the same exact time. That was good stuff too. I still must fight magical thinking on a daily basis and suffer from one and two on that list

Whoops...I also think people beat themselves up for mistakes...and/or life problems that are unavoidable because somewhere along the line someone taught them this. (Taught them that they were to blame for everything...or that failure was not an option etc.)

Ha oops thank you.

Sometimes I get into these weird moods where I question if what I am posting is relevant and/or arrogant. That type of analysis with various psychological concepts fascinates me but I get paranoid that I am just shooting from left field. In the past, moreso IRL, it was implied that I have a tendency to talk over people's heads in terms of psychological theory.


EDIT : This post illustrates what you are talking about. 🤔😅

 

[Starry]

Ha oops thank you.

Sometimes I get into these weird moods where I question if what I am posting is relevant and/or arrogant. That type of analysis with various psychological concepts fascinates me but I get paranoid that I am just shooting from left field. In the past, moreso IRL, it was implied that I have a tendency to talk over people's heads in terms of psychological theory.

Same reason I didn’t post quote you in the other thread to ask the two thousand follow-up questions I had wanted to ask. I knew you would be cool with it but I feared making a TypoC mistake (those are the worst)

 

[Tilt]

Same reason I didn’t post quote you in the other thread to ask the two thousand follow-up questions I had wanted to ask. I knew you would be cool with it but I feared making a TypoC mistake (those are the worst)

Yes. For sure. Trying to find the right mix between being validating/accepting and talking in hypotheticals/conclusions that you have personally observed. Any misstep can lead to you being called a troll, dupe or create an emotionally fueled derail in which you have to step back/analyze before it escalates to "who knows what". It's quite the phenomenon to witness.

For me, mistakes aren't usually clear-cut. Sometimes I don't know the true magnitude or the result until years later. Some mistakes are discovered through hindsight while others end up not being what they first appeared to be (in certain instances, I was in the right and most people were wrong but I didn't know until much later).