Learning from Mistakes.

Learning from the mistakes of others.
Sounds like a great idea, no? I mean, we have parents who fill your life, from birth, with wisdom on how to avoid a lot of mistakes others have made; "Don't put a knife in the toaster, don't blow your hair dry in the bathtub, don't run with a lollipop in your mouth, don't put your finger through the hole in the bagel when you cut it in half..." the list is extensive, and grows with each child. For instance after having my son, if we had been brave enough to have another child, I could've added "Don't do cough syrup shots, don't ride your bike off the side of the bridge, don't play 'sink or swim' in the toilet..." Those parental pieces of advice we take for granted. Our parents are supposed to warn us! But parents also tell you to "Learn from someone else's mistakes."
And, I think that's great advice. It has warned me away from driving while intoxicated, piloting a trailer-truck into a tornado, and riding the NY Subway after dark. As a little, I watched my sister step off the curb and get plowed over by a bicycle, sustaining a broken leg for the summer....don't get hit by a bicycle- brilliant thing to learn 2nd hand.
I can walk around, and see, visibly, mistakes I don't want to make. I don't want a big ol' boob job. I don't want any sort of facial piercings, I don't want to wear cropped jeans, kitten sweatshirts, or trucker hats. I don't want a tattoo anywhere for any reason. What? A kitten sweatshirt is Not A Mistake? Well, eye of the beholder and all. There's folks out there who'd argue pro-teen-pregnancy. I'm still not buying- and that was another mistake I didn't have to make firsthand.
Thank you to my Mom's friend from whose train wreck I learned at age 12 "Have a career, so you can support your family should you need to do so." I am a Veterinarian today because of watching her struggle. She probably doesn't know that her darkest days gave me a life lesson.
I appreciate the mistakes that are right out there for me to learn. What about the others? Our instinct is to hide our mistakes from the world. Keep them private, after all, we don't want everyone to know what a big mistake it was to ...
But, then, if they are hidden, how can we learn? For instance, I WANT TO KNOW why you died. When you are writing your obituary, put it right in there for the rest of us, okay? I want to know if it was avoidable, after all. "Died in a snowboarding accident." Love that. It means "if I snowboard I could die, and this is avoidable after all, so make sure I'm okay with a casket at the bottom of the mountain before I get on the chairlift." Thank you, poor, dead snowboarder, for letting me know. I wear sunscreen to decrease my chances of death by melanoma, I wear my seat belt, I don't hunt at Cheney's. Learning from the mistakes of others.
Same goes for divorce. No, I don't want to gloat over the demise of your marriage. I will mourn. But still, I want to know what happened, to see if I can avoid that particular road of potholes. Some mistakes are right out there, avoidable. Thank you to the Cruises. Don't become a Scientologist and expect your spouse to hop in. I think same goes for any new religious idea that changes the family dynamic after marriage. If you are Amish before you get married and the spouse then has a problem with your Amishness- different story. That is a mistake to avoid before the ring and date. (Ahem, Katie- you knew. But, now- thanks to you, we all do.)
Other mistakes can be more complicated, and how much action do you take to avoid? I mean, the cliche; divorce due to husband running off with secretary/assistant/nurse could be avoided. Make sure the marriage vows include,  "will you promise to love and cherish, and hire all assistants/secretaries/nurses for your spouse until death do you part?" Then, you just have to be willing to conduct all interviews, finding a ruthlessly efficient and completely unattractive assistant for your spouse. Politics would work well here.  For instance, if your spouse is a conservative type, choose an assistant who follows the "How was your weekend?" innocent query with; "Well, the traffic was terrible on Friday. What we need is a new government agency to oversee the traffic flow on our highway, and make sure everyone has a time when they are allowed to leave work." Or, "I spent Saturday at a rally to save an innocent man from state execution! Another poor soul forced by circumstance into dealing drugs to support his family and then ended up killing a few shopkeepers."
If, on the other hand, your spouse leans left, the assistant must carry a firearm in her purse and refer to anyone walking on street during working hours as "moochers." Should do it.
( Huz would like me to add that even though this was not included in our marital vows, it is unneccesary as he has no intention of making this mistake! So, hiring powers at his work need not plague him unduly with ruthlessly efficient political blowhards. And his wife is a total babe).
But what about the other reasons for divorce? Irreconcilable differences. UGH. Need more information! Can I learn from your mistake?
So, now I feel I should share Mistakes I Have Made, in the sense of fairness.
Ahem.
Don't play tackle football in a parking lot.
Don't try to make a mountain bike leap a chasm.
Don't hire a mentally unstable man to work on your house (part of well known Learn From Others caveat "you get what you pay for").
Don't give a sixteen year old a chain saw and be unspecific about which trees to cut.
Don't order all hens and expect no roosters.
Don't drive a tractor on a hill if it does not have brakes. (that was Huz' mistake, but I think it is important to include)
Don't work for someone who gives out your home phone number to the clients unless you want to be called day and night.
Don't teach your horse to swim across a lake, if the other side of the lake isn't fenced and your neighbor has a putting green.
Don't be surprised if you can't stand your roomate's boyfriend and your dog bites him. Hard.
If your man is accusing you of cheating, and you aren't- someone is.
Don't play with bobcats unless you have protective clothing.
Don't de-scent skunks and go directly to your birthday party.
Don't stay friends with someone who makes you feel bad.
Don't try to put a divan on your minivan roof and hold it on with your hand while your sister drives down the highway, even if the divan is a sumptuous brocade and was free.
And lastly:
Don't expect people to change just because the possibility exists.