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General trends:
- I think a general trend I'm seeing in the mistakes listed below is not being aggressive enough, or in other words, allowing myself to be pacified into not acting.
Helpful resources
Specific mistakes:
These are embarrassing to think about! I'm listing them because it was so painful to realize I was wrong in these cases that I never want similar mistakes to happen again.
- Undated - I saw a cat over the course of a few months, and thought he was OK and not hungry because someone else was feeding him, but the cat "disappeared" one day and I then looked up the symptoms of poisoning and it became clear to me that he may have been getting poisoned (weak hind legs, lack of appetite, yellowish gums, and a neighbor with a motive and established animosity). I think my mistake was to not recognize its lack of appetite as a potential serious problem. I also didn't spot the weak hind legs and yellow gums until the last time I saw him, and it didn't occur to me that someone might be poisoning him until I saw how weak he was the last time I saw him. It's hard for me to think of a way to avoid this kind of problem
- How I might avoid making this mistake in the future: It's hard. I guess the only thing is to note any times where a person is visibly unhappy with something in their environment, and then anticipate all of the possible ways that they might try to solve that problem
- . Don't ignore it when someone is unhappy.
- 2004 - When the movie "Troy" came out, I was in English class and criticized some aspects of the movie that I thought weren't in-line with the original work, and my teacher brought up that those were actually things that had happened in the books. (For example, the outlandish behavior of Achilles).
- 2004(?) - This one's really embarrassing to think about: while in high school I was thinking about South Park and noticed that Kyle's mom's "What--What–What???" would translate to "Que--que–que???" in Spanish, which would sound like "KKK", and (IIRC) I became convinced that this was an inside joke. Again, it's embarrassing to think about now.
- Solution: ...
- Being slightly dismissive of Johnny's passwords w/ Edwina
- Solution: Be more cautious in giving opinions on things you aren't an expert about. (This is a tough one to fix because it came up in relaxed conversation. The best bet may be to just keep reminding yourself about this and hopefully the next time you're in a situation like this you'll remember what happened here.)
- 2007 - A friend of mine recommended I should check out 'There Will Be Blood' and I assumed it was because the movie was about oil and that person was always talking about how the invasion of Iraq was all about oil.
- Solution: Do extra research before using strong words with someone.
- Solution: If you find yourself getting emotional, try to get away from that situation to calm down so you don't end up saying/doing something you regret.
- I should have asked L for an introduction to C.
- Solution: ...don't be afraid to ask for an introduction? [Later: reach out to people! Talk to people if you think they can help you!]
- I should have been more aggressive / proactive in HS about taking care of things that were making me unhappy (acne, dating)
- 2014 - In a random conversation I got into at a Starbucks, I told the person I was talking to that "TED" talks were named that because they were started by Ted Turner.
- I still feel embarrassed about this.
- Solution: Double-check everything you say. Ask yourself how you know that it's true.
- Solution: Be reluctant to talk about things you're not very familiar with.
- 2015 - Implying something untrue in the wording of an email blast to professors
- Solution: Don't imply things that are untrue.
- 2016.11.24 - Dev offered me his book "The Quest", said he'd gotten it from a partner at S, and I was skeptical that it was any good, saying that no one would offer someone else an autographed copy of a book they had a very high opinion of. But later I looked it up on Amazon and it actually looked like it was a really good book.