Do we learn more from our mistakes or from our success? I believe from our mistakes, because when we mess up, we want to fix it and make it better, and then later on we know not to mess up like that again.
We don’t necessarily learn immediately after we make the mistake. We have to take time to think about it. Just like if you were to run a marathon and win, you wouldn’t even totally grasp what’s happening until after you caught your breath.
But… How are we to know we are truly making a mistake? We only have one life, so how do we know what is actually the right thing to want or to do if we can’t do it all to see what turns out the best? You can’t simply trust the others opinions on the matter, because they aren’t you. You most likely couldn’t make an accurate guess as to what you would do yourself, because you haven’t done it yet. You might react completely different than you think you would, most likely because we have a warped image of ourselves in our mind that isn’t really us at all.
How are you to tell whether or not the mistake has made you smarter, or a better person? Some people are complete idiots who make the same mistake over and over, but never learn. Maybe the failure make you bitter. Besides, who can say what makes a good person? We, as people, have a right to do whatever we like (outside of adultery and murder, because that is flipping terrible).
But, I do think that we can make ourselves what we consider to be better if we ‘learn’ from our mistakes. It’s really all in our head. =D