Other People's Mistakes
Can you learn from other people's mistakes?
People talk about this all the time. But I don't think everybody has the same concept of what the question exactly is.
I always thought I was able to learn from other people's mistakes. And maybe that sort of was true. But my mindset was all wrong.
When other people got something wrong, I always thought that if I do what they did with more effort, or do what they did with more perfectionism, or do what they did with different timing, then obviously I've learned from their mistakes. Right?
What I needed to do was something else entirely. Just do another thing. If I want to achieve an objective, use a whole different method.
Ultimately, it turned out that I need to confer with my Higher Power first of all about whether I should do the objective. I need to lay out a rough draft of my plan and ask God to block it or bless it.
If I get immediate and obvious obstacles, then God is blocking it. If the plan executes easily, God is blessing it. If God blesses it for a while then suddenly starts blocking it, that means I need a change to my plan.
But I do need to observe other people's mistakes and failures and try to see exactly how and why it failed. Almost always, the answer is not to apply more precision or more effort. It means a change of method. Or even a change of objective.
Just some thoughts while I'm folding laundry.