There’s a saying that says, “A smart man learns from his mistakes; a wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” While the saying focuses specifically on mistakes, it could work just as well if it focused on life lessons instead. In either case, those are the two primary ways I’ve learned life lessons.
I couldn’t even begin to estimate how many bad decisions and poor choices I’ve made in my past. Some of them were the result of inexperience, but I made plenty of them knowing full well that I was acting dumb. I say this not to condemn or denigrate myself, but to give some context for what I’m about to say. When I think about a particular bad decision, I’m often reminded of a lesson it taught me and how that’s made my life better since then. Also, even if I can’t find any valuable lesson, I try to go easy on myself and forgive myself for past mistakes instead of beating myself up over them.
Whenever possible, I try to be like the wise man and learn from other people. Sometimes that means avoiding their poor choices, but other times it means studying their successful strategies. That’s my primary reason for reading so much and trying to learn as much as I can about principles of success. Countless people have lived incredible lives and written about the stuff that works for them; by reading their books, I can glean some useful information that may (and often has) made a positive difference in my life.
There may be some people who have figured out how to learn valuable life lessons purely through observing and studying other people and avoid making their own major mistakes. If there are, I’d like to meet them and find out their secret. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to that point or if that point is even possible, but I can say that I’ve benefited a lot by learning from mistakes, whether they’ve been my own or someone else’s. As I’ve worked more on taking charge of my life, I’ve made fewer major mistakes and terrible decisions. I’ll continue to make mistakes as long as I keep learning new things, but those mistakes are far better than mistakes arising from bad decisions. I hope this is helpful and I will see you in the next post.