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.
- 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 common "What--What–What???" catch-phrase would translate to "Que--que–que???" in Spanish, which would sound like "KKK", and (IIRC) I became convinced that this was a hidden joke. Again, it's embarrassing to think about now.
- Solution:
- Be aware that random chance can produce patterns that may look like they were arranged by another person, but in fact are just coincidences. This "finding patterns" behavior has also burned me with women.
- Ask yourself why the alleged creator of that pattern would bother arranging it.
- In the South Park example, there's no real "joke" if she's been saying "KKK" in Spanish. It'd only work as some kind of hidden tip of the hat to members of the KKK, but that doesn't make any sense because the creators of South Park have no positive feelings towards the KKK, and I very much doubt that members of the KKK watch South Park.
- Also, to even "get" the "joke", the viewer would need to understand both Spanish and English.
- 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.