Mistakes
I've been thinking a lot of about mistakes recently.
On one of our first days here, our international tutor texted me and informed me that the buses to our dorm didn't run very late. She used military time in her text, which I'm still getting used to, so I didn't retain or pay much attention.
That night, we got off one bus to find that the one that would take us to our dorm had already gone to bed. Goodnight, bus. So we walked up the hill to our apartment complex. It's about a fifteen-, twenty-minute walk. It's not too bad, though it is uphill--and the hills here are significantly higher and steeper than those of the "Hill Country" of central Texas.
And now I have a healthy respect for the bus schedule. Especially after that night we stayed out late at a friend's and ended up walking practically all the way back to the city. And then up the hill.
My point is, I was informed of all of this before it happened. But I didn't really understand the text message. The military time thing didn't mean anything to me, not really.
Now I understand. That's my point.
Sometimes you can't understand something until you make a mistake. Mistakes are okay. Mistakes are how learn what not to do. Yeah, sometimes someone can tell you. But sometimes you don't know what they mean. Mistakes are not bad things.
Mistakes, in fact, are good things. They are a vital part of the learning process. Most of the time you can't learn something unless you've gotten it wrong at least once. The trick to learning anything--walking, drawing, basketball-shooting--is to make a bunch of mistakes and then correct them. You don't have anything to correct if you've never made a mistake. Mistakes are how you get better. No mistakes, nothing to improve upon. No improvement.
That's how it is with bus schedules, and that is how it is with life.
On one of our first days here, our international tutor texted me and informed me that the buses to our dorm didn't run very late. She used military time in her text, which I'm still getting used to, so I didn't retain or pay much attention.
That night, we got off one bus to find that the one that would take us to our dorm had already gone to bed. Goodnight, bus. So we walked up the hill to our apartment complex. It's about a fifteen-, twenty-minute walk. It's not too bad, though it is uphill--and the hills here are significantly higher and steeper than those of the "Hill Country" of central Texas.
And now I have a healthy respect for the bus schedule. Especially after that night we stayed out late at a friend's and ended up walking practically all the way back to the city. And then up the hill.
My point is, I was informed of all of this before it happened. But I didn't really understand the text message. The military time thing didn't mean anything to me, not really.
Now I understand. That's my point.
Sometimes you can't understand something until you make a mistake. Mistakes are okay. Mistakes are how learn what not to do. Yeah, sometimes someone can tell you. But sometimes you don't know what they mean. Mistakes are not bad things.
Mistakes, in fact, are good things. They are a vital part of the learning process. Most of the time you can't learn something unless you've gotten it wrong at least once. The trick to learning anything--walking, drawing, basketball-shooting--is to make a bunch of mistakes and then correct them. You don't have anything to correct if you've never made a mistake. Mistakes are how you get better. No mistakes, nothing to improve upon. No improvement.
That's how it is with bus schedules, and that is how it is with life.
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