When we are kids, I don't think most of us give much thought to making mistakes. If it isn't a terribly bad mistake (and let's face it, most childhood mistakes are not serious), then we just brush it off and move on. It's when we move into adulthood the stakes become higher, and the consequences more serious.
Suddenly, we are "legal" and we can be arrested for mistakes. They can cause serious physical and mental pain, and cost us dearly in loss of money. Also, most adults don't have a caretaker like children do, so there is not that extra set of eyes to see when a mistake is likely to happen. Of course we need laws and consequences to keep people safe. However, this idea that we need to make mistakes to learn from them is suspect, in my opinion.
I hear so many people these days saying that it is good to make mistakes because we learn from them and thus become better people. While I do believe that much can be learned from mistakes, I also think we are an intelligent species, and we don't necessarily need to make mistakes to learn things.
Think about it. Do you need to be badly burned to learn that fire is dangerous? Do you need to be homeless to learn how to get a home? Do you need to have a heart attack to find out that eating bad food and smoking is not good for you? Is it required for you to get into a car accident to find out that seatbelts are beneficial? NO! Of course not! We can learn without experiencing. It's called SCHOOL.
Sometimes experiences are helpful, or even necessary to learn something. But most of our learning can be done without putting ourselves in serious danger. In fact, we can learn many many things, just sitting on our couch on our laptop. Imagine that?
I've had a fear of making mistakes most of my life, and I don't think there is not a reason for that. I have been hurt, embarrassed, and cheated enough times to know that I don't want to make the mistakes that cause those things. And why should I, if it can be avoided?
Mistakes may play some role in our lives, but I don't think they are as important as many people make them out to be. As for me, I am perfectly happy making as few mistakes as possible.
