Are they mistakes or are they experiences?

When something goes wrong in your life, do you think it's something you've done or something has been done to you? Did you make a mistake or did you fail completely? Is it karma or is it destiny?

Destiny seems so fatalistic. Why do anything if everything is already predestined? But then again Karma would mean something really went wrong in the previous life. Or maybe it's saving up for the next one?

I find it a bit sad that so many times in my life I could only come up with the right answers after the voting booths had closed, so to speak. I realised I shouldn't have got shitty with the manager only after he fired me. I realised I should have punched back after the kids at school beat me up. I realised I should have brought up an issue and discussed it in detail and without fear only after the issue had reached its flash point and exploded in my face.

Ah, the beauty of hindsight.

So do I really learn from my mistakes though? Or do I vow to never repeat them only to repeat them again once things get comfortable. You've practiced the model answers so many times, you've revised for the exam hour after hour. Only to come to the exam and get all the answers wrong. Not because you don't know something, but because you're scared. Because you think someone else will take the fall for you, because you rely on everyone else in life.

So easy it is to know what to say when no one is listening. So hard it is to make someone else hear you.

It's so hard to make someone else happy. It is so hard to be happy yourself without having someone. So hard to give your heart away, your life away, all your belongings, only to be stomped on and thrown out with the garbage.

I cry now the same tears I've cried so many times before. Do I really learn?

At Uni, if you fail the same paper more than twice, or if you fail more than half of your course in a year, you're not allowed to study anymore. Guess I should take a leaf out of that book of "harsh/true". I will be 25 soon. One can no longer call this a growing up experience. I'd say it's pretty much a screwed up life.