Mistaken

"You can never learn less; you can only learn more. The reason I know so much is because I have made so many mistakes."
~~ Buckminster Fuller, mathematician and philosopher who never graduated from college but received 46 doctorates

I keep going back and forth on whether I know a lot. I've made tons and tons of mistakes on a daily basis....if I'm lucky, they're not the same mistakes on a daily basis. But for so many of them I played the victim game of 'That wasn't my fault. It's someone elses fault, not mine.' So if I failed to take responsibility for the mistakes that I made, did I learn anything from making the mistake? Other than avoiding to put myself in those same circumstances again.

The standard process is -
a) try something.
b) fail (really, how many times have you succeeded at something the first time you tried it?)
c) absorb the lesson
d) repeat steps a-c until you succeed or give up

In the victim mentality, it's so easy to claim 'it's not me, the universe is against me!' when all around us there is ample evidence that with a bit of self-confidence and a whole lotta pluck (or stick-to-it-ness, or stubbornness, or monomania, take your pick) people are accomplishing amazing things everyday, even though the universe is against them. They learn their lesson and start right back in again until they've gotten what they wanted.

So I do know a bit, now that I'm taking responsibility for the decisions that I make on a day-to-day basis. And I'm learning more every day as I make more decisions. And I think I'm learning as I examine the past experiences and decide, 'No, it wasn't XXX, it was me that caused that event.' So maybe I know more than I think I do.

BTW, the Universe isn't against you, it's all for your success, you just have to take the time to listen to it. One way that helps to listen is the new ambient music that is designed to set your mind to the Alpha waves. That's the relaxed but alert state that makes learning a lot easier. Sunday evenings thre's a program called Night Tides on KCUR, a local NPR radio station. For more info on the different brain states you can Google (not a product endorsement ;>)) it or look at the Psychology World site. There's good info there.