A Lesson in Learning Lessons
Teaching and learning don’t stop in the classroom. Maturing doesn’t stop once we become of age. Life gives us lessons. Experience gives us teachers. Mistakes give us tests. Consequences give us grades. Growth is what happens when we actually study what went wrong.
Schools were built with the understanding that growth and learning take time. Education exists because we recognized that people don’t automatically know what they need to know. The U.S. is currently experiencing an illiteracy crisis, so the need to educate the future generations is as present now as it was in the beginning.
The earliest form of the American public school system came about long before the United States ever became independent. Modest, purpose-built, single-room schoolhouses looked much different from today’s classrooms. Even the curriculum wasn’t the same.
Throughout the history of the public education in the U.S., public schools have evolved into what we know today. With roughly half of the population currently enrolled in a public school, most of us are familiar with the current educational system. Someone says the word “school”, and you’ll know immediately what they are talking about.
Teachers, desks, supplies, Chromebooks, chalkboards, cheeky and cringey motivational posters. Lessons, assignments, mistakes, corrections, grades, tests, graduation.
Sometimes you end up repeating the same lessons because apparently life decided you haven’t mastered the subject. Some lessons can take years to understand.
Relationships. Forgiveness. Grief. Independence. Failure. Faith. Aging. Love.
As adults, we often treat our own mistakes as evidence that we’re failures. Why do we give children permission to learn through mistakes, but expect adults to already know how to live?
Mistakes are tools that teach us how to live within society. We learn how to behave and how not to behave; those are mistakes that are necessary. However, there are also mistakes that really hurt people. Even if our intentions are good, the consequences can’t simply be undone.
Maturing isn’t about becoming someone who never makes mistakes. It’s becoming someone who recognizes them sooner, takes responsibility for them, and doesn’t keep repeating the same ones.
It can be hard to admit to the mistakes we have made. In my life, I have definitely made a mess of things. When I was a child, I made what I like to call “dumb kid mistakes”. Lying, hiding things, being reckless, disobeying authority figures. But as an adult, I hurt the person I could have become. Relationships were damaged. I’ve left places to restart my life elsewhere. I’ve bet on a “sure thing” too many times only to lose at the last second. I have been at the top, only to end up at the bottom. Life did not turn out like I had planned. And it took a lot of mistakes to get to where I am today.
“What was the biggest mistake you have made in your life?” you ask.
Well, I’m about to tell you.
I ignored the advice of the older adults that played a part in my life.
As young adults, we think we have all of the answers and have life all figured out. But that is simply not the case. Older adults try and tell us what to look out for, how to win at “adulting”. We’re too stubborn to listen to their advice. In the end, we end up stumbling through life, only to realize that the advice we received would have given us a leg up. There is some really good advice out there if only we would take the time to stop and ask why someone would bother warning us about things we “already know”. Well, there’s things you think you know and things you know-know.
Don’t spend money you don’t have. Don’t ruin your credit before you learn what it is.
Learn from the mistakes of others. Someone else has already done the thing you’re about to do, so maybe hear them out about why you shouldn’t.
Know your wants from your needs. You need to buy groceries, but you want that drive-thru meal instead.
You become who you surround yourself with. If you spend most of your time with people who regularly break the rules, they will pressure you to become someone who breaks the rules.
Take care of your body before it forces you to. Sleep and eat well. Move your body regularly. And go to the doctor to get checked out. This is the advice I wish I had taken more seriously. When I was young, I assumed my health was something I could deal with later. I felt fine and didn’t really get sick, so I thought I was a fairly healthy person. No one prepared me for the day I learned that I wasn’t fine.
My doctor told me I was going into renal failure and that if I didn’t make the necessary changes in my life, I wouldn’t be around for much longer. When I was faced with the idea of death like that, it made me wish I had listened sooner. But I can’t rewind the clock. I just have to take the life I currently have and make the best of it.
And I plan to be around for many, many years.
My story isn’t over yet.
It’s just beginning.
Until the next Spark,
Speak Love. Spark Connection.
Kat
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