Mistakes and failures are a normal part of living but how often did you actually learn from them?

[JEDI]

/Obligatory I keep coming back to ATOT

 

[WilliamM2]

I've always learned from all my mistakes. Both of them.

 

[IronWing]

Introspection, self-awareness, self evaluation, and self-correction are way overrated.

 

[BoomerD]

I thought I made a misteak once...but I was rong.

 

[I'dluv2]

On my 21st birthday I learned manhole covers are really heavy. And to take your fingers out before setting it back down.

 

[akugami]

The missus keeps track of my mistakes, and lets me know when I repeat them.

 

[pmv]

Never. It's impossible, as the exact same circumstances never recur. It's a mistake to try and learn from mistakes. I discovered that the hard way. Not making that mistake again.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Mistakes are often too costly. Leave you too dazed and fazed to learn anything. And may end up haunting you for a long time. Don't make mistakes. That's why we have the internet. Watch others make mistakes and learn from THEM!

 

[zinfamous]

At work: all the time.

In life....not so much.

 

[Captante]

More often than the OP?

(really not saying much!)

 

[JEDI]

More often than the OP?

(really not saying much!)

by postcount, you seem to be making slightly more mistakes than me.
re: https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...ctually-learn-from-them.2613393/post-41029548

 

[Captante]

by postcount, you seem to be making slightly more mistakes than me.
re: https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...ctually-learn-from-them.2613393/post-41029548

Race to the bottom ?!?

*(FYI I'm actively resisting the "implosion" jokes that came immediately to my sick little mind!)

We're neck and neck!

 

[Ajay]

The missus keeps track of my mistakes, and lets me know when I repeat them.

LOL! So true!

 

[Red Squirrel]

When I was a little kid I put my foot through the spokes of my bike. I knew it was a stupid idea but I did it anyway.

You only do that once.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I always learn from my mistakes, but my autism has me repeating the experiment, which is a mistake in itself relating to a mistake I made but need to verify through reproducible efforts.

 

[Kaido]

I always learn from my mistakes, but my autism has me repeating the experiment, which is a mistake in itself relating to a mistake I made but need to verify through reproducible efforts.

My ADHD works the same way. I saw a great video on TikTok that said people with ADHD have a 100% relapse rate...we're like rubber bands that stretch ourselves out & then snap back into place. I have SUCH a struggle with staying consistent at doing even really simple things. I have to do all kinds of mental gymnastics to even keep up with basic responsibilities like doing chores lol.

 

[akugami]

My ADHD works the same way. I saw a great video on TikTok that said people with ADHD have a 100% relapse rate...we're like rubber bands that stretch ourselves out & then snap back into place. I have SUCH a struggle with staying consistent at doing even really simple things. I have to do all kinds of mental gymnastics to even keep up with basic responsibilities like doing chores lol.

Just tell anyone that you are a scientist, and you're confirming when something doesn't work.

 

[Kaido]

Just tell anyone that you are a scientist, and you're confirming when something doesn't work.

I'm, like, a scientist!

 

[JEDI]

My ADHD works the same way. I saw a great video on TikTok that said people with ADHD have a 100% relapse rate...we're like rubber bands that stretch ourselves out & then snap back into place. I have SUCH a struggle with staying consistent at doing even really simple things. I have to do all kinds of mental gymnastics to even keep up with basic responsibilities like doing chores lol.

wha?
yet your cooking skills are outstanding

 

[Muse]

On my 21st birthday I learned manhole covers are really heavy. And to take your fingers out before setting it back down.

On MY 21st birthday, I was at a party (NOT thrown for me), where everybody but me was black. I think the majority were Africans, and it was in the Bronx. My friended African buddy asked for my car keys saying he'd left a bottle of booze in the car. This was after midnight. Next time I saw him was something like 4AM in the hospital. We spoke not a word, tears were streaming down his face as he looked up at me from a gurney. Uh, my car (my first) was totaled. He'd never driven my car. AFAIK, he had never driven a car. It's the last time I saw him and it's the last time I handed anyone MY car keys.

Speaking of manhole covers:

I was riding my bike in downtown Oakland and I think distracted by some cute chick, was on the sidewalk and didn't notice a manhole cover dislodged at a major angle (i.e. maybe 30 degrees?). I was launched into the air and fell to the pavement. It's been ~15 years so I don't remember it real well, but I think the bike fell on top of me. My left forearm swelled up like a grapefruit. My surgeon brother told me it would always hurt and that there was nothing that could be done to alleviate the condition. It still hurts sometimes, pretty bad stinging pain. I guess I'm more careful on my bike.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I think distracted by some cute chick

No chick is worth what you went through!

 

[Muse]

"Don't be afraid to make a mistake. Anything you do could be a mistake. "

"Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and
discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are
one's mistakes." -- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

If you always know where you are, you are lost.

 

[Muse]

“Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.

To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.”
-- Christian D. Larson, Your Forces and How to Use Them

 

[Muse]

"Daddy, what does regret mean?
Well son, the funny thing about regret is,
It's better to regret something you have done,
Than to regret something you haven't done.
And by the way, if you see your mom this weekend,
Be sure and tell her, SATAN, SATAN, SATAN!!!"

 

[Kaido]

wha?
yet your cooking skills are outstanding

Sort of! There's a trick to it, however! My brain gets overwhelmed from making decisions easily & sometimes I run out of the mental energy required to get my body to do even simple tasks, so I employ 3 tricks to bypass my tired, lazy mind:

1. Reminders & checklists
2. Preparation separation
3. Automation

First, my memory is like Teflon, I can't remember squat. I don't remember to cook, I don't remember recipes, nothing. So I use alarms to remind me to cook & I use written recipes to follow. Second, I get overwhelmed easily doing a lot of stuff all at once or thinking about HAVING to do stuff & it shorts me out. I get stuck in task paralysis a lot. So I separate out the preparation from the execution using those reminders & checklists. I have 5 checklists I use in the kitchen:

1. Pick 7 things to make for the coming week (one per day)
2. Go shopping for what I'm missing
3. Prep my kitchen before bed (clean up, get tools out, get non-chilled supplies out, print out recipe)
4. Cook one batch per day (to freeze)
5. Eat (I schedule eating times because with ADHD I sometimes forget to eat because I get so hyperfocused on stuff)

Third, I use automation. ADHD can be hard to explain, but basically, it's sort of like being Vitamin D deficient, except you're dopamine deficient. In practice, sometimes when I go to do work, it makes my head feel like I'm about to get a Charlie horse in my brain & zaps my energy, so then I feel a sudden aversion to doing even really simple tasks. So anything I can do to make my life easier is great, which is why I'm such a big fan of the Instapot! So in practice:

* I don't have to invent an idea of what to eat every day
* I don't have to go shopping for ingredients that day
* I don't have to decide which recipe to cook today because I already planned it out (also, don't have to eat it that day! can just freeze it)
* I don't have to pay attention for very long & do a huge amount of work, which tends to fry my brain, because I have a computer oven & electric pressure cooker

I call this approach the "one-inch bullseye" because all I have to do is hold my weapon an inch from the bullseye on the target & let it go to be successful! Sometimes I have a high-dopamine day & can just magically "do" stuff, but mostly I feel like I'm stuck under a giant mousetrap being smashed down & can't get myself to do anything. Imagine this:

* You come home & your kitchen is clean
* You have a recipe pre-selected to make & have already printed out the recipe
* All of the tools & non-chilled supplies are out & ready to go
* Your alarm goes off, so it's time to cook the food
* You use an automated kitchen appliance to engage in mostly hands-free cooking

So the master-chef thing is just sort of an illusion...really, I'm just shooting fish in a barrel every day! I use two additional tricks on top of that:

1. The Power of Compounding Interest
2. The Power of Permutations

Compounding interest says that steady effort over time results in exponential growth, rather than linear, i.e. your heaps get bigger over time. In this case, I usually freeze my batch of food into bricks to stack in the freezer. Your average batch makes 8 brick. 8 bricks times 30 days a month = 240 bricks in my deep freezer every month, all for the cost of essentially pushing a button on my Instapot once a day. But because I've taken the executive functions out of the equation, I'm able to be consistent with it because it doesn't give me such a (literal) headache to do! This approach saved me so much money by cooking at home when I started doing it that I bought a Mustang lol.

Permutation simply means "variation". For example, I figured out how to make pasta in my Instapot. It takes 2 minutes of hands-on time & 30 minutes of automatic cooking that you don't have to babysit. 3 simple steps:

1. Dump stuff in
2. Let it cook
3. Stir in more stuff at the end

I can choose different types of pasta, sauce, and meat. So if I want to use marinara sauce with penne noodles & throw some IKEA mini meatballs in, I can have an easy red sauce dish! Or I can use frozen grilled chicken strips with rigatoni & Alfredo white sauce. So now I make pasta once a week, but it has virtually infinite combinations! I can use white, pink, green, or red sauce. I can use jarred sauce or homemade sauce. I can use chicken, pork, beef, or tuna. I can use fresh, canned, or frozen meat. There's at least a dozen short, dry pasta shapes to choose from. So because I have memory issues, I made a simple flowchart that you simply trace with your finger:

1. Do the pink steps first
2. Do the blue steps second
3. Do the green steps third



So when I go to make pasta, sometimes I can't eat the whole batch in one day, and sometimes I don't even feel like eating pasta that day, so I use my cube mold to freeze them into cubes:



Once frozen, I can pop it out to reheat it anytime I want: (good for a year in the freezer! I just wrap each cube in Press 'N Seal & stick it in a Ziploc gallon bag)



I can microwave it, I can use my heated lunchbox (Hot Logic Mini & RoadPro), or I can use my computer oven to reheat it using steam. This is just a basic mini-meatball with red sauce & rigatoni noodles, and then I can add some powdered parm, dried spices, EVOO, etc. to doctor it up a bit:



This all looks super-complicated when written out, but I only spend like 10 minutes a day actually cooking & planning out my meals. That's why I always push the Instapot...I can make bread pudding, rice pudding, and tapioca pudding. I can make creme brulee, pots de creme, and mini cheesecakes. I can make shredded chicken, shredded pork, and shredded beef. I can make soups, chilis, and bisques. Everything is stupid easy lol. Combining that with the removal of decision fatigue (I don't have to figure out what to make every day, I don't have to rummage through my cupboard for ingredients because I already went shopping, I don't have to clean up the kitchen because I separated out the preparation & did it the night before, and I simply used alarms & checklists to remember when to do the work & what to do for each task) is pretty much my magic secret to success!

I can't do all that in my head! I get stuck with indecision & physical power loss & just straight-up quit. I live my whole life based on alarms & checklists...lets me pay bills, cook food, do chores, etc. on a regular basis without making my brain feel like it's going to explode lol. Then when I go to unplug for the day, my house is clean, my bills are paid, I've got another batch of options in my freezer to eat, and so on, so I don't have to worry about stuff! So it's all a giant illusion. I don't remember squat & my brain gets honked up in real-time when I go to do stuff. So I stick in my little Game Genie cheat cartridge of alarms & checklists and just bypass all that nonsense in order to get awesome results, haha!