The 33 Days Newsletter Challenge – Day 15

Today is the fifteenth day of the 33 days challenge. The question for today was: “What’s the most stupid thing you’ve done so far?”.

Let’s see the answers.

C.F. “With the information and emotional intelligence I had when I did it, the most stupid thing I’ve done so far was my best option. I’m glad I took that option, because I feel it is better to regret what you did than to regret what you did not do…”

That’s a very, very healthy way to see things.

B.H. “Most of the things I think are stupid are just teachers for me. Like when I ran over my guitar, it was a lesson in humility, as was the time I flooded my kitchen, and the time I set another kitchen on fire. I did feel stupid at the time, however, they are also just things that happened. My ego could quite naturally get caught up in the “I’m stupid, poor me, what an idiot” mode, however, it serves no purpose to marinate there. The message I needed to hear was, “Slow down.”
Nothing stupid about hearing that.”

Stupid things like speeding tickets. I like this metaphor.

S.C. “The most stupid thing I have done is not go to school once I arrived to Canada to further my education and contribute to my career.”

There’s still time to correct this, I guess, right?

A.A. “Most of the stupid things I’ve done are related to love. But those issues are buried in the past so I’ll just let them there. Nowadays, I would consider stupid the fact that I didn’t do sport for 8 years. Within the last 3 months I resumed my running sessions and I love the clarity of mind I get on those moments. Also I do consider stupid the tremendous number of NO’s that existed so far in my life. For instance, I wouldn’t consider myself surviving one day without 2-3 coffees. Guess what, I challenged myself and now I have 4 days without any coffee, just green tea … and I’m feeling good 😉 ”

Those NO’s can be really nasty, don’t they?

B.D. “I believe the most stupid thing I’ve done (repeatedly) in my life has been to stay with the wrong men, thinking “things will get better,” but they never do. I am usually swept off my feet by a man who quickly tells me he loves me, promises me “the moon,” and says and does all the right things, so that I think “he is the One,” and then I wait for a proposal, for about 6 years each time! Then, inevitably, he gets comfortable in the relationship and stops showing affection, doesn’t do the special things he used to do for me, even though I continue to be loving, supportive, and do special things for HIM. They make excuses like “when I have more money, we’ll get married,” “I’m not ready yet,” or they just cheat to end the relationship. I never really know why they won’t marry me. I am pretty, slim, talented, smart, and treat them kindly and with love. But they always just lead me on. I want to stop doing the stupid thing of staying with them, but I hate to give up on something I’ve invested so much time, love, and soul in. I wonder if NO ONE wants to get married anymore. Or am I really just being stupid with who I let in? I’m tired of feeling stupid with men/relationships.”

Oh, oh, I can so hear you here. You know, they say that we can only experience what we’ve experienced before. Simply because we didn’t learned how to experience new stuff. And we keep on repeating the same stuff, because it’s the only stuff we know how to do. I wrote more about this topic here. The bottom line is that if you really want to escape this circle, you have to do things you didn’t do before. As painful and as confusing as these things may be.

S.L. “The most stupid that I’ve done, and am still doing is agreeing to do things that I don’t really want to do, such as accepting job offers that I’m not interested in because I’m worry of having no food and shelter, agreeing to teach tuition just because I feel guilty not using my free time to help others, and the list goes on. Those are stupid things because I’m not true to myself and allow external factors to sway my decision. Those are the stupid things that are teaching me to set strong boundaries. ”

So, again, stupid things are useful. In a way.

T.L. “one of the most stupid things that I remember again is staying in a relationship when the other person was not interested in anything I was doing… That was a long time ago when my self confidence was low (business stress) and I was relying on good wine to get me through that stage…

The most recent thing was bottling up air to commercially sell. Even though I knew it was stupid, I actually got a buzz out of doing it. Stepping out of the norm (comfort zone?). ”

So, it wasn’t stupid if it led to something, right? I mean the bottling up air. As for the first thing, I’ve been there too. Not good.

Now, here’s my answer to this one.

I think the most stupid thing I did so far was the thing that lead to my biggest learning experiences. I’m speaking from a theoretical point of view here, but bear with me, a real life example will follow. The point is that I think the biggest the mistake, the more important and useful the lesson too.

So, I can say that, on the personal level, the most stupid thing I did so far, was to “save” the person near me. To be a knight on a white horse for a damsel in distress. I know it sounds romantic at all. I know we all saw this in the movies or heard it in our bedtime stories. But in real life, at least for me, this didn’t work. At all.

What happened was that, instead of living happily ever after, I found myself in the delicate position to keep helping that person for ever. And ever. And ever. The lesson was: if you position yourself like a saviour, you will keep saving that person over and over again. Even when you don’t want to, or when you don’t feel like. Because that’s how you advertised yourself and that’s how you built the interaction from the very beginning.