The Myth Behind 'Experience Is The Best Teacher'

Growing up, people always sing this song to my ears that experience is the best teacher. They tend to suggest that you need to gather as much experience as you can to be able to live life in the right senses of the word. 

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They believe that, once you make a mistake, you learn from it and the mistake would never repeat itself. Some claim that the experience does not necessarily need to be personal. It could be something that happened to a friend or close relations and you learn from it. They see experience as a guideline on how life should be lived, how things should be done, what should be done and what should be avoided.

As an individual, i always have problem with such idea. I do not believe that there is a tailored way on how life should be lived. I also do not believe that if we do same thing same way, we will always get same result. No i don't. I am aware of this Yoruba (A tribe in Nigeria) adage that says: Ti a ba so ada soke ni ita gbangba lopo igba, ibi pelebe lo ma fi le le. Meaning no matter how you try differently with same methods, you will always get same result.

This view becomes a rigid way of thinking and comprehending reality for me and i choose to distance myself from such view.

Etymologically the word experience is from the Latin word experiri which means to try, or to test. The word is composed from ex (“out of”) + peritus (“tested/from trial/attempt”). In it early usage, the word means “knowledge gained by repeated trials”.  Source

Experience can be defined as an event or series of events participated in or lived through. They are things that happened or occurred in the past which the subject (individual or people) had himself/herself and then use as yardsticks or guidelines for future occurrences.

You might be wondering why i think experience is not anybody's teacher not talk of being the best teacher. Lets look as some scenarios.

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When you are about to engage in something, for instance, and someone says: Do not do it because it wont come out good! And you ask: How did you know? You will be shocked by their answer: From experience! So people practically tell you the answer of something you are yet to try not because they know (in the right sense of the word) but because they have witnessed/tried/tested it/experienced the thing in question.

The simple fact that you tried something and it didn't work for you does not in any way suggest that it will be the same for everybody. 

Take note, experience is not close to certain, it is nothing but experience and it remains in that realm called experience.

Why does a lady who experienced breakup few months ago entered into another relationship and was left broken again? Do you think she didn't have the experience? Or perhaps she has different experiences? How many experiences do you think she needs to have to perfect her existence? 

If the first guy cheated on her, the second also cheated on her, what makes you think another guy wont cheat on her? This same lady would use her first experience with her first ex as yardstick to (mis) guide another lady whenever she sees the same 'symptoms' she saw then! How come she had four cases of similar scenarios? 

Experience are occurrences that are so confusing and hard to grasps because similar cases 'would not' always turn out to be the same. Since something happened to you and you got result A, nothing says if similar thing happen to me i will get result A.

We can learn from our previous experiences no doubt but they cannot teach us anything such that those things becomes guidelines on how to live our lives, how not to live, things to do, thing not to do, etc. We have different experiences and what works for A might not work for B.

Do not let anybody tell you to act based on the experiences they had. Every effect do not always come from same cause. People feel pains but there are different things that cause pains. You can say people drink water because they are thirsty, but the question is: Is every cases of drinking water a result of being thirsty? You wont get an affirmative yes for that because people drink water sometime because it was prescribed by doctor even when they are not thirsty.

So what works for you might not work for me. Your experience is yours, it is real to you and personal. Since it didn't work for you or it worked for you does not mean it wont or will work for me. I am the teacher of my experience!

Criticisms are welcomed as i intend to explore more on this topic.

 Thanks to @jodipamungkas and @gbenga for the badge. 

Thanks for reading.  Its your boy @smyle the philosopher

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