Thought for the Day - Jan 24

Subject: Thought for the Day - Jan 24
From: Peter T.
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 01:20 AM

It has taken me my whole life to learn how to learn, for example, from my mistakes. My standard model of learning from my mistakes was always a bit like Mark Twain's remark -- "A boy who picks up a cat by the tail to carry it, learns something he can learn in no other way". It was the hand on the hot stove, the obviously stupid act that had immediate, shocking consequences, and had the response: "I will never do that again!"

But over the course of time I have found that that kind of learning from big mistakes is too easy. In fact, most of the real mistakes I have made are slow, multiple, insidious; and those that have caused me the greatest pain -- loss of love, loss of money, loss of respect -- did not happen in one day. They happened gradually, with a web of small mistakes, insensitivities, cut corners, not paying quite enough attention.

What finally broke me of them (those that I have broken) was, again, not a single shock, but the grinding over and over again into me of the consequences of failure, yes, sometimes accompanied by a big initial shock, but mostly just having to pull myself back up, hand over hand, out of some terrible swamp of my own creation. I have cried out: please, I know, I get the idea, I won't do it again -- but it goes on, grinding its lesson into me. And so I really learn, finally, when I am so sick of it that it has burned the habit out of me. It makes sense: it took time getting into the mess, and it will take time getting out of it. The habits are deep: so recognising their effects takes evidence upon evidence. I wish it didn't work that way, but it does, for me, anyway. It is a part -- the hardest part -- of learning how to learn from my mistakes.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Jan 24
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 04:51 AM

Watching yourself make mistakes over and over again, has to be one of the hardest things in the world. If you ever just sit back and run your life over like a movie, you can pinpoint those areas where in a real movie you'd be shouting at the screen, advice like - don't go down the cellar stairs, don't take the lid off that pan, or don't kiss her, she'll rip your heart out...... Teaching others to avoid those mistakes has to be even harder than that. Teaching my child to avoid the boiling urn in the kitchen was the most difficult so far, it took a lot of reinforcement and a hot hand to teach her to keep away, but if she had only listened, she would not have had to do it that way. Teaching someone by telling them can do the opposite, the only way to learn completely is to experience completely. If your experience is spread over several years, then maybe it is because it takes that extra bit of maturity to recognise the mistake.

Of course, we who never make mistakes have to learn by watching those who do.....

LTS

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Jan 24
From: Peg
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 10:58 AM

Thoughts on the thought...

there are mistakes and there are karmic lessons...

some believe we are destined to repeat mistakes from our past lives until we learn how to break the pattern...also we may continue to run into the same people again and again until we resolve our differences with them. Your enemy on the battlefield in one life may be your spouse in another, or your father...those sensitive to this phenomenon find they often recognize these people instantly upon meeting them...it is one theory for why people fall in love at first sight: past life recognition.

the lessons we are to learn in this life are often the problems that keep repeating themselves: why are we unable to handle our anger constructively? Why do we have problems with authority figures? Why are we beset by money worries? Why do health problems stand in the way of getting what we want?

Relationship patterns are one repeatedly find themselves involved with someone who is bad for them?

I believe we are given the hardest tasks possible for what we are capable of dealing with. Then again, it does seem that those born into wealth and privilege have an edge over those born into abject poverty...

peg

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Jan 24
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 11:55 AM

One of the reasons I love wallowing in songs that are hauled for'ard from history is that they are often embedded lessons -- if not in particular skills, at least in ways of seeing the world and keeping some humor about it, and returning some created beauty into it in spite of the knocks. I suspect 'Catters, being deep steeped in this legacy, are better learners than many in other walks.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Jan 24
From: GUEST,Neil Lowe
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 11:58 AM

...a physical edge maybe (more creature comforts and less worry about satisfying the basic needs), but after that it's just a different set of problems.

Neil

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Jan 24
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 08:40 PM

One of the good things about playing music is that you hear the mistakes as they happen, and so do other people, and you hear them on the replay and they are worse.

And the other good thing is that you can learn to use the mistakes you make to make the music better, if you're crafty. Occasional discords and odd notes can sound great, and you learn that by listening to the mistakes you make, and other people make.

"If I had my time again, maybe,
I'd make the same mistakes.
You could warn me of the future,
but I'd dream of lucky breaks,
For the young ones never take advice -
that's not the way we learn -
and the past is another country,
and there's no way to return."

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Jan 24
From: thosp
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 09:45 PM

If we do not change
our direction, we are
likely to end up
where we are headed.
-Chinese Proverb

peace (Y) thosp

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Jan 24
From: annamill
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 11:35 PM

My goodness, Peter.. I hope experimentation, the joy of trying something new, love of life has not been ground out of you. That's why we enjoy the little ones, because they haven't been ground down yet. Keep making mistakes! That's how you know you're alive. For goodness sakes..

Love, annap

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Jan 24
From: catspaw49
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 11:42 PM

I was going to post something here, but I think it would probably be a mistake.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Jan 24
From: GUEST,micca
Date: 25 Jan 00 - 07:22 AM

I just wish I was young enough to know everything,

"Ah fill the cup, what boots it to repeat
that time is slipping underneath our feet
Unborn tommorow and dead yesterday
why fret about them if Today be sweet"

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Jan 24
From: GUEST,flattop
Date: 25 Jan 00 - 08:50 AM

Annap has a good point Peter. I trust you were just having a bad day or simply writing a mood piece.

Making mistakes can be seen in a positive light. Here are notes from a business book, The Perfect Business by Michael LeBoeuf:

_______

5. Focus on Trying New Ideas Instead of Avoiding Mistakes

'Don't make mistakes.' That's the message we learn repeatedly from the time we're old enough to understand. ... It's great advice - when the rules and procedures are clearly defined and the right answers are known. But that's not the environment of a home-based business. The problems you encounter cannot always be solved by following the rules. The options are many and the answer to important questions are unknown. The only way to truly find out if something will work is to try it.

Resolve to make the best decisions you can, try out new ideas, learn from the results, and keep trying.

Success comes from making good decisions. Good decisions come from good judgment. Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment. - Anonymous Don't try to make mistakes. Learn from the mistakes and good fortune of others. It's always less expensive to learn on someone else's nickel.

But don't expect to be perfect. ... IBM Watson's formula for success was to double your number of failures. George Bernard Shaw, 'When I was a young man I found that nine out of ten things I tried didn't work. So I did ten times more work.

Those who never make mistakes usually end up working for those who are afraid to.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Jan 24
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jan 00 - 08:36 PM

"If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing badly" - Chesterton.