Do the Right Thing

“You can only do what’s right after you’ve made mistakes.” This was a post that I read and it jumped out at me from a distance. I immediately disagreed.  I argued the fact that we should learn from other’s mistakes, and the reason we make mistakes is because we are simply human. The writer of the initial post proclaimed me to be wrong. He said, “It starts from a little child. You make a mistake you feel the pain and you learn not to do it anymore.”  Only if life was so easy. If you are wise, the pain will teach not to do the action in which cause the pain. Many undergo variations of the same underlying pain without comprehending the lesson. But I was wrong. Not about my opinion (in fact that is what it all is) but I was wrong for changing his statement. He did not say that you can only learn from mistakes, rather he said you can only do what’s right after making mistakes. So in a literal sense, he is saying that everything we do will be wrong and only after we make the wrong decision can we make the right one. When you tie it in with the secondary statement that you can only truly learn from your own mistakes I come to the conclusion that we can’t comprehend other’s life lesson; we must live through each one ourselves. On the contrary, not everyone has to get an STD or presented with the decision to have a baby or an abortion to know to wear protection. Not everyone has to go to jail, lose their family, or suffer other negative consequences to know doing drugs in a bad decision. I am not arguing that we can learn everything from other people’s mistakes, but I cannot agree that we can only do right after being wrong. He went on to tell me, “the most smartest (wisest) person in a room is usually the one who has made the most mistakes in life.” Is he serious? Yes, yes he is. Once again agreement is absent between us. There is nothing new under the sun. Life doesn’t present you with that many scenarios for you to make new mistakes and continue to grow wiser from each one. We all make mistakes, it’s inevitable since there was only one perfect man and when we see Him again this life will be over. But if somebody is making that many mistakes I truly believe that they are repeating some of the same mistakes. Some learn faster than others while some are negligent to the lessons. Those who are negligent are usually the ones with the most mistakes, and in turn they are not present with the wiser men. At the end of the day, this is my opinion, not mistaken fact, but my opinion.