DQ: What was the largest mistake you ever made and how did you learn from it?

[Tranquil Claw 80]

DQ stands for "Daily Question". It is a theme I started recently.

 

      The biggest mistake I ever made was probably when I blurted out in daily shares a random dream I had the night before. I mistook the dream for a spiritual sending and then presented it as such. It was the most awkward situation I've ever been in. What I learned from it was actually negative, that you must blend into society or else pay the consequences. Out of this came the "Dark Ages" of my life, a period of time where I had to endure some increasingly hard depression. This eventually led to one of the more positive lessons I learned, how to use logic to separate true from false. Questioning life itself tends to put forth a lot of opportunities for growth and observation. As a result I am now very opposed to simply fitting into society. If I let society change me how will I be able to change society then? Keeping your wills and opinions untainted by the world around you marks you as a distinct figure. Someone I continue to strive towards being. 

[MManny23 33]

The biggest mistake I can recall was not telling the girl I've been in love with how I really felt. I'm 21 and I've never actually been in love or had that butterfly in your stomach feeling. I met this girl at work last year and she was always really nice to me but I don't like when girl are really nice to me cause I assume they like me which I know can't be case seeing as how I have low self esteem. My low self esteem derives from my personality not my physique. I'm not a large person or anything I just think I'm not worth people's time. Anyways, she would always greet me with a smile and I would always find a way to push her away but even after all that she would still be nice to me and would want to talk to me. I suddenly found myself in love with her. Maybe it was because after all the times I've ignored her and all the times I tried to deny her kindness she still wouldn't stop greeting me with a smile at me. I always assumed she was only nice to me because she wanted me to do her work ontop of mine. I thought she was a lazy person and I did call her that to her face. After I told her that she would still smile at me and would say "Hi Manny!" I also noticed how she would struggle to do her job since she was small and weak. I felt so foolish and after I realized that would always help her even when she never asked me help. She then moved from night shifts to mornings and in turn demanding morning just so I could hear her voice again. That may sound pathetic to most but she would always make my day. I finally got the courage one morning that I was going to invite her on a date as friends to hang out but I saw her sitting with a co worker after her shift ended. And when once I clicked out she was stil talking to him. He was way better looking than me so it didn't really bother me as long as she was happy and could still see her. Unfortunately, the next day she quit. I was so heartbroken. I didn't have her number or any way of contacting her. So I would be the last I would hear from her or so I though. A few months went by and I saw her again right as soon as I was walking to my car. She parked next to me with a guy. I was on the phone and I heard the words "hi manny!" Then suddenly I froze up. I couldn't move for a second. Right after I pretend like I didn't hear her and again she yelled out my name even louder. I had no choice but to wave and smile back. Without hesitation I drove off in my car before she could even get off. I cried the way home and still regret not telling her how I really felt. I regret not asking her out the day before she left it still haunts me to this day as the biggest mistake I ever made. Only time can heal a broken heart I guess

[NOX33 184]

The biggest mistake I've ever made (so far) was when I had to choose my education path there's two paths. (Let me briefly explain my country's education system) instead of high schools we have secondary schools(5 years spending) which are ages 13-17years old in secondary 4 or 16yo to most. You will take a national exam which is called 'GCE N-levels' (General Cambridge Examinations Normal-levels) after i took that every student will get to choose if they would want to continue to the last year of secondary school education which is taking another national exam this time its O-levels(ordinary-levels) its the traditional path to choose this, the newly path made is to skip this and to go straight to tertiary education schools in my place there's two institutions but lets just name it A and B, A is the highest of the two but in order to go there you need like a really good score but unfortunately I got a score that I only could go to B then to A its a long path but many teachers consider this to be a safer path because it takes about (starting from sec 4 age 16yo) 5-4 years and guarantee my place in A, and the traditional path is about 4 years but the traditional path is much more faster and you will get more choices in the course you want like the path which i took(sadly) only had a limited amount of courses you could take unless you're like an elite in your education to get a really good score you'll get to take any courses you want unreguarding your current course( lower priority than the traditional method so may not get the course you wanted to change to ). But the thing is that the traditional path was a go big or go home kind of situation if you fail you'll need to spend a longer time of about 8 years whereas mine is 5 years and that thought always scared me into at least not trying to achieve my best and trying the O-Levels, instead I let fear take over me, every now and then i keep regreting the choice i made because there's a thing called at least trying it but i didn't. Like i could have just tried you know. But now I realized that its useless to be sad about the bad choice I made and just to go with it I learnt to not give up so easily and just try even though its risky because you may never know if you would get great things or success by it but now im just going with it and next time i am prepared. Sorry about the long i guess you could call it an essay Haha thanks for reading or at least glancing upon it. cheers

Edited October 3, 2015 by NOX33

[Tranquil Claw 80]

An essay is exactly the response I wanted to see. I read through both and was shocked at the amount of detail and passion you guys put into these posts. Thank you so much for sharing this with the community. It's like your own letters to Celestia in a way. Writing down your struggles and showing how you overcame them. I like to call this the art of storytelling. 

Edited October 3, 2015 by Tranquil Claw

[碇 シンジン 27,437]

I don't really think anything is a mistake because you can always learn from everything  and I think that is the beautiful thing in life

[EpicEnergy 23,240]

I can't tell what the largest mistake I ever made was, but one very large mistake I once made was quitting my job. I feel like I could have stayed much longer in it, but instead I quit because I couldn't handle the physical demands of it.

[Sherem 4,807]

I have lots of them so there is no greatest or largest, but one of them is that I realized that I should have never tried to be a content creator for MLP, never should have done an RP, or written a story, perhaps not even drawed or created an OC