Friday, 7 December 2012

Learning from Mistakes


Today, when walking home from school, a Range Rover reversed into me. In hindsight, there are things I could have done differently, or better, although I still believe the driver was more in the wrong than I was. Either way, it was an experience I have learned from; always be very careful when it comes to cars in close proximity.

As I continued my walk home, it made me think. I made a mistake, and I have learnt a little from it. It’s not much, but potentially lifesaving in a different situation. And everyone does this almost every day. We make a small mistake and take something out of it, something we can use later on in life, or that same day. Whether it’s dealing with a friend who’s causing a spot of bother, or getting the wrong answer in a maths question. These little things can be taken, improved on, learnt from, and used in a different situation or lesson.
I’ll use the car issue I had to deal with today as an example. Instead of stepping out into the road to cross it whilst the car was encountering another, I could have waited until the cars had gone their ways, and the road was clear. Now, I can take this experience and, if and when, I am faced with a similar situation, I now know what to do; be patient.

My German teacher always used to look out for what she called ‘nice big juicy mistakes’. At the time, I used to think she was just trying to get us excited about mistakes because she liked them. But now, looking back, she was teaching us a valuable lesson, even though she was rather patronising. I think what she was trying to say, is that mistakes are good, and they shouldn’t be ignored. Even the littlest things can become very useful later in life, and she was trying to drill that into us at a very early age.

Personally, I think the best thing about this ‘learning from mistakes’ is they can be any sort of mistake that you have experienced. Whether you were dealing with someone in a restaurant, having a fight with your friend or partner, going shopping, spilling a secret, in a lesson or crossing the road.

Some are more common than others, and some are more important than others, but basically what I’m trying to say is that, after my experience today, it is good to look back on things and think ‘what could I have done better?’ or ‘what did I do wrong that I won’t do ever again ever?’

It’s amazing how much impact the littlest things can have on day to day life.