Philosophy Now Forum

If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake?

The brain’s “blind spots” makes us unable to see our own prejudices, biases, corrupting influences, and hypocrisies.

Is pyschoanalysis a way to recitify these blind spots, or does life in general as the years go by teach us to identify the potential mistake we may make and halt the process. I find I am still capable of making the same mistake, the only difference now is I can hopefully recognise it sooner rather than later. My fear of making this mistake is borne from the knowledge that I will suffer dire consequences as a result of poor judgement.

Speak for yourself, why don't you?

'we...we...we...'
Is that the Royal we?

The egocentric teacher could not accept the student's opinion as valid?

No blind spots for you!

"You were blind, but now you can see"?

LOL.


you....you....you the royal you. more in your comfort zone.

Some of us have a more active imagination than others. These people may be more afraid to make a mistake because they imagine the consequences as terrible. So they remain rigid like at the border of a precipice.

You can learn from many mistakes, yes.
But some mistakes change your course of life so much that there is no return possible.

If we think hard enough we can surely find many items to be described with the words:

if only I hadn´t done this, I would not today ... be so miserable.

Anything we do or say or even think changes the course of history, just a little bit.
And the steps cannot be retraced. We are stuck with the results.

The playground is not limitless, certainly not in the adult life.
When a kid makes a mistake in a sand box he can try again, but how many chances do we have ?

depends on the environment.

In business? a) until you get fired or b) until you get bankrupt. Business is the evil game, it can last quite long but it always comes back at you.

In social life? quite many, but if you dissatisfy your spouse for instance it will most likely have severe consequences, while depending on your relationship with family you can make quite a lot of mistakes and, if they are cool, you can still be included, though with reduced status. Friends are somewhat in-between and very depending on your luck. Some literally sticks with anything, some runs away at the sight of you in new clothes.

In education? even more, but with consequences if we don't follow up on time.

In health care? depending on severity, I would still say quite few chances. A doctor can't kill more people than he lets live, and a nurse can't be more rude than her employees will allow and mostly nurses are supposed to be quite friendly, at least by modern standards here in Norway.

Overall we have few chances where we are relied to be responsible, while more chances where we are less responsible and more ruled by permanent positions (like family or country of origin).

We can learn from our mistakes, the question is do we or how quickly. Learning from our mistakes would suggests there is a better way of doing something to avoid possible adverse consequences or to gain better results for instance. Sometimes I dont see the problem until there is one and then I try to avoid it. I think we do learn from mistakes and non mistakes but the results can be better or worse in some specific areas. Sometimes things are better staying the same but that doesnt happen either.

Much smarter to learn from other people's mistakes.

No. It's just that you seem to be arrogant enough to pretend to speak for everybody. I can only speak for myself, not having the wisdom and the vision of your illustrious self.

My mistake in this post was my misuse of the word "we", which I shall replace with the word "I" where appropriate. Point taken.


Hopefully I will learn from my mistake.

No problem; its a common enough mistake.

Seen.

Another one I find odd is that people refer to themselves as "you".

Even after a massive personal catastrophe people are often in the habit of saying stuff like: "You don't know its going to happen to you. Then you drive off the road and you hit a tree. You find yourself in hospital with a broken back and you wish you had thought it through a bit more."
If that person thought it through a bit more then he would be well advised to use "me" or "I" and take responsibility for his stupidity, rather than generalise it - as if it was happening to someone else.

I strongly suggest that you read Kipling's poem "If" .

I acted upon your suggestion and it was an experience worthwhile. I have not read any of Kipling and I was surprised by the beauty and eloquence of the poem.

Thank you.