When most people think of education they think of school and university. Our real education comes from life and it is a continual education. We learn through all of our senses, actions, emotions and thoughts. As small children we learn that walking into walls is not a good idea, the wall is hard and it hurts. As we grow older we learn about people, relationships, finances and so on. Some of the lessons are painful but still valuable. So why is it that we do not take all of the life lessons to heart?
If you saw me walk into a brick wall you might give me some sympathy and help clean up any wounds. If I walked into the wall again you would think I was clumsy. Should I keep doing it you would know that there was definitely something wrong with me or I was being stupid. I should have learned that walls are tougher than my body.
Somebody sees a get rich quick scheme on the internet, pays out their money and gets burned. So they look for the next get rich quick scheme, burned again. How many times do they need to get burned before they take the lesson seriously?
How about the person who works 40 hours in a week, overspends and goes into debt. So they work another 40 hours, overspends and goes further into debt, works another 40 hours…. you get the picture. They should have learned that working for someone else is not going to make them rich. Or they should have learned that buying things on credit is not such a good idea. Finance companies love to tell you that you can get what you want right now to make you happy. They do not seem to tell you what you will have in the future, how happy are you with unpaid bills and collection calls?
We all seem to be stupid in some areas, life lessons that we do not apply.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
– Albert Einstein
I think a large part of why we do this is because people hate to admit they were wrong, even to themselves. We have been taught that it is wrong to make a mistake and that is not true, we can learn from our mistakes. It is wrong and stupid to keep making the same mistakes. We will keep trying to do the same thing hoping it will work out, that would prove that it was not wrong.
Some time ago I decided to look at some of the ‘insane’ things that I was doing, ‘banging my head on the wall’. I sat down and wrote out the areas that I could see in my life that were not going the way that they should. I really dug deep, it was not very comfortable. Then I made a list of what I was doing in those areas, or not doing, what life lessons was I not applying. The list was longer than I had hoped.
The next step was to find out why I kept doing it, that was when I realized that I did not like being wrong or at least admitting to it. The person that I most did not want to admit my mistakes to was myself, that was uncomfortable to do. However it is more uncomfortable to keep doing the same unworkable things, it is just that the discomfort is spread over a longer period of time and you get used to it.
Now I know that there is no shame in making a mistake, Einstein backs me up on that too ‘A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.’ It is alright to tell myself ‘I made a mistake, well I learned something new’.
I would highly recommend that you do the above exercise, it is alright, nobody is watching. Find out what life lessons you are not using and improve your life.
About the Author:
Ray Terris would love to see you succeed. If you have enjoyed this article, and would like to find out more about what it takes to succeed, please visit my website at http://www.what-is-success.com. It is not a sales site but one designed to give you the tools and information to succeed and live your dreams.
