Learning is often being done by others telling you how you can do something or by seeing how someone does something perfectly. However there is also an alternative way of learning and that is to see someone do something wrong and learning your lesson from it yourself.
An example of this is when you are looking to buy a home you see everyone at your age purchasing homes that they can’t afford. They want to “keep up with the Joneses”. The only thing that this does is cause you a lot of headache and potentially will negatively impact your financial future as much as costing you your normal living standard. If the home is to expensive for you there might come a moment you will no longer be able to pay of your mortgage. Instead of following what the people around you are doing you can chose to become smarter because of the actions they take. Instead of going for an expensive home you can go for a decent one that doesn’t break your finances (as much) as it does for others. Instead of diving head first and ending up in the same bad position as everyone else you will have your moment later in life where you come ahead of them.
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers. – Khalil Gibran
A lot of lessons are learned by making mistakes. When it’s possible to learn from others you are saving yourselve a lot of problems. Instead of focussing so much on constantly taking actions it would be great if you start looking at the bigger picture. See what your friends, family and peers are doing and how their decision influences their life. They may always have wanted to get paid a high amount for the work they do so they put in so many extra hours to get promoted or they are constantly job-hopping to find the highest paying job. While this may increase their earned income it will also cause more stress and in the end they may decide it’s not worth it. Since recent years changing jobs has become more frequent the average amount of years we stick at one job has decreased rapidly. Before you take a decision like this consider what the impact will be on your life and not solely the financial impact in the first months.
When we have people around us who talk a lot we sometimes feel we have to follow their example. However what the majority does doesn’t have to be the direction you go. For example if others buy expensive toys (read cars) on credit does that mean you have to follow? If someone at your work talks a lot they will be the center of attention, this is mainly due to respect. Rather than ignoring someone who is talking we tend to pay attention to them. But that isn’t to say that there isn’t value in silence. Being silent allows you to think before you speak and to reflect on yourself. Noticing that someone isn’t willing to help others out shouldn’t provoke anger with you. Instead of anger you can spend your efforts and time into helpen the people out who are in need.