As children, our parents constantly warn us. "Don't touch the stove, your hand will burn." "Don't go there, it's dangerous." "Don't do it, you'll regret it."
We hear these things. We nod our heads. And then we go and do what they tell us not to do. It's normal, we are children, we will learn.
Because what is said is not enough for us to learn, we don't really know what will happen until we experience it.
In short, that stove is touched. Our hand burns, we learn from our mistake and we don't touch it again. This is how we learn. The reaction to the action we take imprints the information in our brain.
It is as simple as that. Because no matter how uninformed we are as children, we have no obstacle to acquire that knowledge.
A small baby falls, cries and gets up. It does not try to explain why it fell. It doesn't make excuses about who it clashed with. It just lives the experience. Because where there is no ego, nothing stands between the mistake and its consequence.
But as we grow, our ego grows with us. This is inevitable. And with this development something new emerges: Not being responsible for the error;
We look around and see people who are unjustly rich, oppress, imprison, and nothing happens to them. We say, are we the suckers of the world, let's perform an action and there will be no result.
In the beginning it feels like freedom. To say, "It was not my fault," is like breathing. It gives us a feeling of lightness, of defense, of some kind of protection.
But this lightness opens a door without us realizing it.
Mistakes are first hidden from others. Then from ourselves. Unspoken mistakes appear over time as if they did not happen. "It didn't happen" becomes almost true after enough repetition. And it is not only an internal matter, the people around are also forced to act within this illusion.
Over time, life turns into a dungeon, both for those who live it and for those who have to be with that person. Its walls are invisible but there is no exit.
Now we are faced with this strange reality: As we grow up, the ego takes over. Our actions still have consequences, but we can no longer learn from them. "It wasn't my fault." "The circumstances were different." "Everyone gets it wrong." "Next time will be different."
And the next time, it's the same. Because we touch the stove but pretend that it is not burnt. Sometimes we have such lies that we not only make the environment believe them, but we also believe them ourselves.
This article is about looking into this very question: Why do we find it so difficult to learn from direct experience? And what is the cost of avoiding this learning?
The Philosophical and Scientific Background
Philosophical Perspective
Every Action Has a Consequence - From Physics to Life
Newton's third law is very clear in physics: Every action produces an equal and opposite reaction. (1*)
But this law doesn't only apply to physics. It also applies in life.
Everything we do has a price. Every word we say. Every decision we make. Whether we accept it or not.
The Stoics realized this very early on. Epictetus says: Our choices are ours and the consequences are ours. Shirking responsibility does not eliminate the result. It only prevents us from seeing him. (2*)
And this is where the danger begins: The desire for action without results. "Let me do what I want, but don't pay for it." This desire is understandable. But every action has consequences, whether we see them or not. Unseen consequences snowball. And one day, it comes back much bigger.
Freud: The Ego's Defense Shield
Freud studied very well how human beings cope with uncomfortable realities. He called it "defense mechanisms." (3*)
Denial: "That didn't happen."
Reflection: "It's not my problem, it's his problem." Rationalization: "I already had a just cause."
These mechanisms protect us in the short term. Ego is not injured, identity is not shaken, we remain comfortable.
But what happens in the long run?
We touch the same stove again and again. Because we didn't see the result, we ignored it, the learning didn't happen. And the ego makes a new excuse every time.
For me, Freud's idea shows this: Ego-based defense mechanisms work not to protect us, but to keep us from growing, to keep us where we are.
That's why these mechanisms are dangerous: They keep us spinning in the same spot, but they prevent us from realizing it.
Jung: Facing the Shadow
Carl Jung challenged Freud's idea that what we don't want to see disappears. According to him, what we deny does not disappear, it grows in the shadow. (4*)
What he calls "shadow" is: everything we don't want to acknowledge in ourselves: mistakes, weaknesses, dark impulses. As we ignore them, they grow stronger in the unconscious. And sooner or later (often at the most unexpected moment) they show up.
According to Jung, the solution is simple but requires courage: To face the shadow. To see it. To recognize it. To integrate it.
I want to underline something very important here: looking at negativity does not have to create negativity. To see one's own mistakes is to be the master of them, not their prisoner. Looking at the darkness does not draw us to the darkness. Not looking, ignoring, pretending that it is not dark.
Nietzsche: Looking into the Abyss
We have all heard Nietzsche's famous sentence: "If you stare at the abyss too long, the abyss will stare back." (5*)
This sentence is often misunderstood. As if you don't look at the darkness, you become it. But what Nietzsche is really saying is: Be careful, know how much to look.
There is a difference between looking and falling. There is a difference between awareness and identification.
Looking at your own mistake does not make you that mistake. But not looking at that mistake makes you more likely to make it again. What requires courage is to acknowledge the existence of the abyss and to look at it (at least in order not to fall).
Aristotle and Hegel: Deficiency is a Prerequisite for Growth
Aristotle has an idea: Change takes place only when there is a lack. Deprivation is the precondition for transformation. Nothing can be added to a full container. (6*)
Hegel explains this with dialectics: Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Growth happens through contradiction, not in spite of it. The comfort zone nourishes us but does not grow us. Growth is hidden precisely in what is not, in the unknowable, in the disturbing. (7*)
In the last article we talked about making peace with what is not. In this article we go one step further: What is not there is not just something that needs to be accepted, but something that is necessary for growth itself.
To see what you lack, not to declare your inadequacy. Recognizing the space to grow.
Scientific Perspective
Growth After Trauma - Why Pain May Be Mandatory
Research by Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun reveals something very interesting: People who face serious challenges often experience deeper personal growth than those who do not. (8*)
This is called "post-traumatic growth". Pain accelerates development when it is processed correctly, that is, when it is seen, accepted and worked on.
And what does it mean to "do it right"? That's exactly what it means: Seeing the results. Not to deny. Not getting caught up in the excuses of the ego.
Hormesis - Small Doses of Challenge Boosts
In biology there is a concept called "hormesis": When the organism is exposed to a small dose of a harmful stimulus, it strengthens itself against that stimulus. This is exactly the logic of vaccination. That's how the muscle develops. (9*)
It's the same in psychology. Running away from challenges makes us weak. Facing them in small doses makes us strong.
Touching the stove and getting burned teaches you not to touch it again. But avoiding the stove altogether does not teach us how burning it is. And we are unprepared when one day we face a bigger fire.
Carol Dweck: Fixed Mindset and Developmental Mindset
Carol Dweck's research reveals a very important distinction. (10*)
The fixed mindset works like this: "Making a mistake means I am incompetent. Then I should not see the mistake, I should hide it, I should deny it." Because the error threatens identity.
The development mindset is: "Failure is feedback. It shows me where to grow." Error does not threaten identity, but rather invites growth.
The difference is this: one runs away from the consequences, the other reads them, understands them, and does something to avoid reliving them.
Cognitive Contradiction - How We Deal with the Uncomfortable Truth
Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance says this: When one is confronted with a negative truth about oneself, there is an internal tension. There are two ways to reduce this voltage. (11*)
Way one Change the truth. So learn. "That was my mistake. Next time I will do it differently."
The second way: Deny the truth. "It was not my fault. The circumstances were different."
The second way is easier in the short term. But in the long run it paves the way for repeating the same mistake. And with each repetition, the ego reinforces that denial a little more.
Of course, there may be bad things that happen to us that are not our fault, but that is a topic for another article.
The Real Problem
Blinding - The Man Who Stopped Growing
A person who does not see his mistakes, who avoids the consequences, who does not look at his shadow becomes blind over time.
The atrophy does not happen all at once. With every avoidance, with every denial, with every "it wasn't my fault" it becomes a little more rigid. It goes around in the same cycle. It has the same problems with the same people. He repeats the same mistakes with different costumes.
And the saddest thing is that it is not even seen. Because the ego does a very good job. Each time he finds a valid excuse and blames it on the outside.
Growth happens through this cycle:
Action leads to results, seeing results leads to learning and this leads to growth and development.
The atrophy is with the following cycle:
The action leads to the result, but denying the results leads to repeating the same action, which leads to hardening.
The only difference between the two is: you can afford to look at the outcome.
Solution Suggestions
How Those Who Learn from Their Mistakes Think
Again, I would like to share with you these practices that I prepared for myself:
After every important decision or action, I ask these questions:
What happened? Is it what I expected? How much did I contribute to this outcome? How much did someone else contribute? What would I do differently next time?
Asking these questions honestly is the adult equivalent of what a child learning at the stove does. Reading the reaction. To make something out of it.
Meeting the Shadow
Inspired by Jung, I try this: What are the qualities in others that I find most disturbing?
The answer to this question often points to something in my own shadow. What I see in someone else that makes me uncomfortable can be a reflection of something I don't want to accept in myself.
This realization is disturbing. But it is precisely that discomfort that marks the area of growth.
I ask myself if there are repeating patterns in my life. Do I always have the same kind of problems with the same kind of people? Does the same frustration recur?
What is my part in this pattern?
I ask this question not to blame myself. but to learn. To break the cycle.
Inventorying the Gap
From time to time I write these questions:
What don't I know? Where do I have room for growth? In which area do I still feel incomplete?
These questions are disturbing. But Aristotle is right: Nothing can be added to a full vessel. Seeing the deficiency means opening the space where I can grow.
Conclusion and Message to the Reader
As children we touch the stove and learn what not to do when it burns.
Because we know what we have done, we see the consequences and we don't ignore it or hide it, we accept it as it is and learn from it so that we don't make the same mistake again.
Our hand burns. It hurts. And that pain writes the information directly into our minds.
As it grows, something interesting happens:
Our actions still have consequences, but we become much more creative to avoid seeing them.
Sometimes we make excuses.
Sometimes we look for the blame outside.
Sometimes we pretend it never happened.
But life has a strange characteristic:
The consequences do not go away.
Even if we ignore it, postpone it, deny it, it is still there.
And most of the time the same lesson reappears in a different guise.
Maybe growing up is not such a complicated process after all.
Maybe it is just this:
Learning to read life's feedback.
Whenever something repeats, whenever the same frustration reappears, whenever we find ourselves in the same cycle...
There is usually a reaction there.
And that reaction is trying to tell us something.
Touching the stove is not the price of growing up.
Touching the stove and pretending nothing happened is the real cost.
Because the lesson not learned is not lost.
It will only come back later.
Perhaps that is why the real courage is not in not making mistakes, but in looking at the consequences when we do.
Therein often lies the path to our growth.
See you in the next article.
Until then, stay in love.
Source and Inspired Texts
- Newton, I. - Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Third law of motion)
- Epictetus - Enchiridion (Handbook)
- Freud, S. - Ego and Id (Defense mechanisms)
- Jung, C.G. - The Four Archetypes (Shadow concept)
- Nietzsche, F. - Beyond Good and Evil
- Aristotle - Physics (Theory of deprivation and exchange)
- Hegel, G.W.F. - Phenomenology of the Spirit (Dialectic)
- Tedeschi, R.G. & Calhoun, L.G. (1996) - Posttraumatic Growth: Conceptual Foundations and Empirical Evidence
- Calabrese, E.J. (2008) - Hormesis: Why it is Important to Toxicology and Toxicologists
- Dweck, C. - Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
- Festinger, L. (1957) - A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
