I have made a lot of cock ups

Mistake after mistake, 

Some big enough to notice, 

most, I'm sure in self-awareness blind spots. 

Our brains are incredible at protecting us from ourselves in order to maintain our self-esteem.  

Having the courage of self-assessment is very important. 

Finding someone who can give us honest feedback on us is both incredible rare and incredibly valuable. 

It also takes another level of courage. 

These things normally take the shape of a story but in this case it can't, the telling of the story
serves to undo my point. 

I read a quote recently by Pierce Brosnon

"Go for what you want if you succeed you'll be happy if you fail you'll be wise."

Obviously this is from the internet so it's incredibly unlikely that he said it. 

Which is fortunate because neither point is true. 

Failures come often, they almost never make us wise. 

The prevailing idea is what Pierce said above but our brains are wired to protect us. 

Failures never result in wisdom. 

It's only in deliberate reflection that we gain the wisdom. 

It's in looking directly as those things that didn't go as we had planned and then asking;

How did I cause this? 

Only then is the wisdom is free to come. 

What most frequently happens is that we ask; 

What new belief about the world, people or person, will allow me to protect myself from this failure? 

Over time we build up barrier after barrier and story after story each standing in the way of what we really want for ourselves. 

Both wisdom and happiness reside in our ability to gain usable insight from our actions/behaviours
and respond accordingly. 

Ed Ley

https://www.edley.net/subscribe