Week 91 - "Mistakes are a part of the dues one pays for a full life." – Sophia Loren
For a long time, I wondered why I always felt the need to burn my hand on the stove when it came to learning lessons. It was never enough for me to get advice or learn what to and not to do regarding certain topics.
It always seemed necessary to try things myself, and hope I’d learn my lesson. But even then, there were things I began to acknowledge I’d never accept, even if it meant getting hurt.
I felt unchangeable in that way, but recently, I felt like I’ve truly understood what it means to learn a lesson from a mistake.
And I know it sounds crazy that it took me 20 years to learn from my mistakes, but it’s more than that.
I’ve always used the fact that since every person and situation is different, learning from them could only teach you so much—that just because something didn’t work in one case, doesn’t mean it never could.
I’d see others swear off things because of one bad experience and could never understand why. If anything, it seemed closed-minded to me, and I could never see myself doing the same.
But here I am, surprised and disappointed to find out how wrong I was.
Now, because of one experience, I’ll inevitably always second-guess and rethink future situations, wondering if they’ll end up like the last.
Even if I try to reason my way out of this one like I’ve done so many times before, telling myself I was in a unique circumstance, I know it won’t work.
I think the biggest gripe I have with this realization is that it has fundamentally shifted how I approach the world.
I’ve lived most of my life seeking my own understanding of things through personal experiences and conversations. I thought it would not only let me create my own opinions of things but also harden my skin and make me more invulnerable to the natural challenges of life. And for 20 years, that’s worked out pretty well.
But if one experience can fundamentally change that, what does that mean for every other bad experience that’s yet to come?
Will I always have to tread carefully, with this newfound awareness lingering in the background, keeping me on guard? Will every lesson, no matter how easy or hard, become another piece of me? Or will it hold me back, preventing me from embracing life as openly as I once did?
I’m not sure.
But maybe that’s how it’s supposed to work.
At the end of the day, it was inevitable that my naivety in learning from my past would eventually catch up to me.
It’s just the surprising shift in perspective that makes me wonder how things will feel going forward.
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