Experience

Okay so this was a blog I wrote and posted on mysapce almost a year ago. But as the world knows no one takes myspace seriously. So I decided to replace it here.



Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a book or a course manual to life? We would no longer wonder who to trust, what do expect or which way to turn. It would all be right there in front of us. However it's no secret that the answers to life aren't lined up before us with a cheat sheet attached. We have to learn. We have to work for our wisdom.

Learning. We go to school to learn. That's why we're there. Most of us go to school thinking our teachers will tell us all we need to know. The inteligent people being paid to make us smarter. Surely they have all the answers. But how much of what we read or discuss in school can be used in life?

Oscar Wilde once said, "Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing worth knowing can be taught." I have never heard of words spoken in more truth. The real learning we do, the real lessons can only be taught by the most cynical of all teachers, experience. Man kind is forced to undergo the process of receiving our lessons in the form of our results. Instinct can only get you so far. Other words come to mind as I consider this topic: Regret, luck, disappointment, mistakes. I've had to learn the hard way just how effective going through these things can be and I am sure I am not the only one.

So often life does not seem to be about doing the right thing but about not doing the wrong thing. Process of elimination. With enough attempts and enough failures eventually you will learn the correct way of going about your life. If there was a way to make this easier or less painful, now that would be a relief to us all. It's a shame how much damage can be done in the quest for the wisdom we need to conduct our lives properly. You may lose friends, respect, faith, hope, courage and countless other securities. With luck, what you learn in life will make up for the harm caused on your journey towards knowledge.

No matter how hard you may try, Or how much you learn, sometimes the wounds are just too deep. Sometimes the regrets do not fade away. Is this the result of experience being too harsh of a teacher? Is this the result of a weak person combined with difficult situations? No one can say for sure. Of course it depends entirely on the person in question and the situation in which they are placed. So many times you might here, "Had I known then..." or, "What was I thinking when..." The comfort in those words rests only in the knowledge that the same mistake will not happen twice. A faint ray of hope, but what more can we really expect?

Everyone knows experience is the best teacher, but how many of us are greatfull how painful learning is? I've found truth in that the more agonizing or dramatic something is the more I learn from it. It makes an impression on me. Makes me stronger, or so I'd like to believe. The most you can do is learn the lesson and do whatever it takes to heal the wounds. Some things cannot be healed. Some are not meant to be. Perhaps the trials and errors in life are no more than a test. In my opinion though, the only way to be sure of complete sucsess is to understand and suffer failure.