Remember….

“’It’s a bit of a cliché to say that we learn more from our mistakes than our successes”

There is no such thing as success, failure, happiness, depression, good taste (accounts for euro-trance). Not that people don’t feel these things, they’re convenient labels we tack on things.  Your subjective experience of happiness is quite different from mine.

All these feeling states are subjective , not things, that we do. We don’t happiness, we happiness. The same as failure. There is no such thing as failure, until we slap the label on it.

Research has shown that we learn more about events and associations for which we initially make incorrect predictions than for things for which our initial predictions are correct. The element of surprise in discovering we are wrong is conducive to learning.  Cognitive thinking suggest the same emotions, thought processes and general situation harpoons the brain to capture previous experiences in the past (good or bad).

The greatest thing you can ever do is make mistakes.  Frequently people refer this remark to me all the time; “if only I could erase my past mistakes then I would be free” .  That, is a misunderstanding of epidemic proportions. If you erased your mistakes you would effectively erase a great percentage of what you know at this given point in your life.  Why logic does this serve?  It hurts to bring forth past errors in judgment yet is necessary time and time again.  Especially with events that are emotionally draining to us.

Specifically, emotional romantic attachments is a prime example.   This event can be dictated to us via friends, books and self proclaimed experts in various media outlets etc…  Yet when action is called for this event is best battled with knowledge based upon ones own experiences.  Or better yet, if the situation is new, then simply see where it takes you but take heed of the lesson learnt and pluck forth the good, bad and the ugly truth.  Few situations call upon our emotional reserves than those of failed romantic adventures.

The pain we feel we make drastic mistakes is tragic.  When I failed in business and my athletic endeavors whether minuscule in depth or great it always hurt.  I have spent moment, hours, days even in a complete daze because my whole world and all of my dreams came crashing down abruptly.  To say that I was ruined would be an understatement.

Then after a period of time I began to realize I know a few things about failing in business and life I could teach others. I began to share my stories of failure with people of whom I know whether neath the context of life, cycling or work.  Those of whom I have interacted with gained genuine insight in what NOT to do, and conveniently, what TO DO.  As a result my reputation as fledgling writer/bike dood became to take shape.

When I was sharing with people the mistakes I had made, I realized that one of the most important things for me to do is milk them for all their worth. It would be a tremendous shame to simply allow them to slip through your fingers.  Forgetting them is one tragedy, another is to neglect the sound advice passed down from our elders and those of whom have ‘been around the block’.

Keep an eye and an ear forever open, NEVER ignore new lessons learnt and those from the past.  Invest these turbulent events in your “mind bank” and reap the rewards of caution and wisdom in the future.

-OC