Do you remember the days of being your parents’ remote? I do. Sigh.
I’ve been pondering a lot about the process of elimination. I have been thinking about how progress usually has a lot of mishaps along the way. It’s rarely smooth sailing.
My youngest son has epilepsy. The way you find a medication that will work for epilepsy, is purely by a process of elimination. You start with one medication, and you keep going with it, until you seize, or the side effects become unbearable. Then, you move on to the next medicine, and you start all over again. I imagine it is the same for many disorders and diseases. It’s never a simple process. It can be daunting and frustrating and disappointing.
In that light, I started thinking about how judgmental we are about ourselves on our own journeys in life, and also how judgmental we can be about others, and even about the generations who came before us. However, the reality is, most of the answers which we learn about anything in life, never become crystal clear until we test them out, right? You learn not to touch a hot stove because you experienced being burnt once or twice. You learn from your experiences, far more than you learn from any lectures. Your experiences give you an extremely visceral memory, to help to keep you on track.
I recently watched Squid Game. It’s a brutal, but fascinating watch. (SPOILER ALERT) One of the games that the contestants play is crossing a bridge, made of glass tiles which all look the same to the naked, untrained eye. Half of the tiles are reinforced glass that can hold a person’s weight, and half of the tiles are made of glass that will shatter, causing the contestant to fall to his or her untimely death. The first contestant to cross the bridge, quickly does the math. There are 18 steps to be made, in order to cross the bridge safely and intact. The first contestant has a 1/262,144 chance of crossing the bridge safely. All of the other contestants who follow the first contestant, get better and better odds, as the game goes along. The later contestants have absolutely benefited from the mistakes made by those who came before them.
Do not crucify yourself for the mistakes you make in life. Learn from them, and try to help others to not make the same mistakes that you have made. This is the main reason why we study history. History has a tendency to repeat itself, until we finally learn the lessons and take a new path. Do not be too stubborn to not learn from your own mistakes. Do not be too proud to learn from others, and their experiences. Be open to learn the lessons of those who have gone before us. At the same time, try to be compassionate when others make mistakes, realizing that people are not always “doing life”, with the same starting odds. We all make mistakes.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.