why life experience isn't always a good thing

Most people strongly believe that gaining more life experience is always a good thing. After all if a person has been through a lot or if he experienced what you haven't experienced before then he must know better right?

Before i answer this question let me first ask you another question, who told you that the way this person stored this experience in his mind was correct? Let me ask the question in another way, what if that person stored this experience in a biased way?

Here are some examples of situations where experiences got stored in the minds of people in a messed up way:

1)All men are dangerous: A woman who was once betrayed by a man who seemed loyal (experience) started to believe that all men are not loyal. This woman developed commitment phobia and as a result isolated herself from men
2)There is no hope: An ambitious man failed for the third time to start his own business and after the last failure he decided that he wont try again. His experience in such a case prevented him from giving another try
3) I am a boring person: Sue who was a young lively teen didn't manage to make friends at any of the schools she went to because her parents use to move often. Later on she started to believe that the problem was with herself and as a result she lost her self confidence

What's common between all of these life experiences?

As you just saw the experiences we go through don't always teach us correct lessons because the way we interpret these experiences influences our core beliefs about life.(see also Why criticism hurts)

In other words, it won't matter if a man was more experienced than a kid unless you make sure that he has interpreted the situations he has been through correctly.

A 10 year experience could be worth nothing if this experience was coded in the mind in a biased way. (see also Emotions and perception)

How many people out there have psychological disorders because of the mistakes they made while interpreting the different life situations they have been through?

How many people out there suffer because their experience database is full of incorrect facts?

Experience can only be a good thing when people manage to make unbiased judgements and thus code it correctly in their brains. (see How perception affects behavior)

What about your own life experiences?

Do you think that you are worthless?
Do you lack self confidence?
Do you believe that you can't succeed?
Are you living an unhappy life because you acquired experience the wrong way?

If any of your answers was yes then know that the way you collected experience is the root cause of your problems.

The good news is that its not late to rebuild your experience database. By filtering wrong information and incorrect facts you will be able to make the best use of the experience you collected.

Here is how you can do it:

1) Examine your current beliefs: Do you have any limiting beliefs? Where did you get them from? Did you code an experience into your brain incorrectly and as a result acquired these false beliefs? Find out the mental obstacles you have built over the years and single them out
2) Discard incorrect information: Get rid of the incorrect information that is present in your mind. You can do that by challenging this information with knowledge. Knowledge is the only thing that can help you understand the experiences you go through correctly. Depend on life experience alone and you will end up with messed up biased data about life. Use knowledge as a guidance and you will be able to determinate which experience was interpreted correctly and which was not (see also Why experts are wrong
3)Try again: Don't stop at this point but try again and again until you acquire new experiences that help you erase the incorrect information you previously had in your mind

Life experience without guiding knowledge will only lead to a corrupted experience database. The moral of the post is: Read as much as you can.

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Want to know more?

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How your experience database affects your perception of attractiveness

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