Does Experience Teach Us?

Experience often does produce wisdom, and
wisdom is surely a help in any relationship.
However for many people experience breeds not
wisdom, but cynicism and bitterness. Too many
people learn the wrong
things from their relationship failures: they learn
not to trust, not to have
high expectations about a relationship lasting,
and not to trust too much of themselves.
In truth, we can learn from both failure and
success.

The ensuing cycle of increasing success
protects them from falling
into cynicism and destructive, self-protective
behaviours.
A negative experience can teach us what not to
do. A positive experience can confirm
that we are on the right track. Both are
valuable lessons.
No one would consider successive failed ventures
as a reason for confidence the next time around.
On the contrary, most of us would say a history
of repetitive failure is
more likely to be predictive of future failure.
Why?
Because repetitive
failure indicates an inability (or unwillingness) to
reflect on and learn from experience.
Here’s the point: the real teacher is not the
experience itself,
but the reflection and self-examination that
should go with it.
Experience, negative or positive, only really helps
us if we reflect on it,
learn the right lessons from it, and change the
right behaviours as a result.
While our own experience certainly has a way of
getting our attention,
it’s not the only way to learn.We can also learn from the experience of others.
. If you’ve started thinking about having a determined mind to avoid becoming like your
messed-up addicted friend – congratulations!
You’re learning from someone else’s experience.

Whether it’s our own or someone else’s experience,
learning from experience is just an academic
exercise if it doesn’t translate into a change in
behaviour.
Whether the experience was positive or negative, a
success or failure, if we don’t reflect on it effectively,
experience will fail to teach, or worse, lead us the
wrong way.
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