One For The Mistakes

There will always be times in your life when you do things which feel good in the moment but are actually so embarrassing that if someone else finds out, they might die. Either laughing or cringing. Possibly both, if the mistake was truly premium.

The thing is, we grow from these incidents. The more mistakes you make, the more you learn. Even if you repeat the same mistake a thousand times, when you finally learn from it, you learn. That’s when you will never make it the thousand-and-oneth time. Hopefully. Humans are stupid, but we are occasionally trainable.

People always say you have to learn from other people’s mistakes. These are usually the people who know many things that sound wise. In reality, it is not so easy. People learn from experience, not sayings. Otherwise, sermons and motivational speeches would actually work, which in turn would make those speakers unemployed because nobody would need to hear “believe in yourself” more than once.

I would like to list some of the most recurring mistakes that need to be said:

1. Trusting any and every person life throws at you.

I know it feels tempting to blurt out every detail of your life to someone you just met. Your life, your friend’s life, your family drama, the thing you swore you would never tell anyone, the thing your friend swore you would never tell anyone. It feels nice to be understood. It feels nice to have someone listen.

But sometimes the person listening is not a vault. Sometimes they are a Bluetooth speaker.

Always be a little skeptical of new people. A little trick I use is that I try to keep quiet during the first couple of meetings with anyone. If the other person starts leaking every private detail about everyone they know, check your own mouth twice before confiding in them.

2. Not trusting anyone.

Now, before you become Batman and decide to trust only shadows, relax. Not trusting anyone is also a mistake. Unless you like confiding in a trashcan, or worse, yourself in a mirror, try to find a couple of people who will guard your most embarrassing incidents as their own.

Everyone needs at least one person who can hear the worst version of a story and not immediately convert it into social currency.

3. Taking too much advice.

No matter which phase of life you’re in, you’ll be knee-deep in advice from people ranging from six-year-old kids who still believe chocolate milk is a balanced diet to eighty-year-old people who can’t tell Facebook from Twitter. These bits of advice will be so contradictory that you’ll end up more confused than you were before.

The people who give advice generally belong to two categories: those who know things from experience, and those who heard a quote once and have been unbearable ever since. There is no way of knowing for sure when somebody enlightens you with their so-called wisdom. It might be gold. It might be the greatest piece of garbage you’ll ever come across.

As a rule of thumb, I steer clear of people who claim they are here to “share their wisdom.” Pfft.

4. Not taking any advice.

Sayings exist for a reason. A proverb is basically a short sentence based on long experience. So while it is better to ignore most advice that comes your way, sometimes you might find a gold mine of experience which you should listen to for your own sake.

The day you learn how to filter bad advice from words of gold is the day you become wise.

These were some of the common mistakes that I see being repeated a little too often. I know these do not sound contradictory at all, but refer to my above point: the day you learn which advice is bullshit is the day you become wise.

Peace.