Dear Debi, I'm not sure whether life would allow me to learn just from other people's mistakes. Normally, I happened to put my fingers in the fire. So I could write a few stories from professional or other areas. Dear Debi, I was pretty good trained in my entire social life with transformations and conversions in areas of negative values into a positive. I'll think about the story.

I learnt a lot from my mistake and from other mistakes. I think nobody had no mistakes in the first beginning. I would say that all professional researchers had mistakes when they were beginners.

"Who does not act, is not wrong," says a proverb. "You learn from your mistakes" says another. "Who's never wrong, let him cast the first stone" is a famous phrase of the Christian gospel. All the conventional wisdom is based on the correction of errors as a source of growth. I am not an exception to these rules.

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time. - George Bernard Shaw

Oh yes. A very classic and serious mistake. I had a lecturer who didn't write on the board. When she said 'Krebs cycle', most of us wrote 'Kreb cycle'. I carried that error for many years. Until I did a research on mnemonics for Krebs cycle. Even when I wrote my paper, I still erred. Finally I realized my mistake, and corrected it, when I rewrote the abstract uploaded on RG. Sorry dear friends. Please accept my apologies. You can see it's unintentional. What a relief to get it right.

Concerning the learning that I received: be extremely careful, especially when it comes to names. And don't just speak orally in class, assuming students can read our (my) intentions. WRITE important things, like names. Thanks.

We must have some alternations, positives and negatives,

W are in harmony with this phenomenon that is everywhere as the day and night, joy and sadness, the heart beat and break times, moments of strength and weakness, activity and rest, and in a general way all types of cycles, etc ...

The problem is how to get out enjoying it and benefit.

Thanks Beat for your views; I am waiting for your story; i am sure it would be interesting, and others will also look for learning in it.

Dear all: thanks for your interesting observations on mistakes. Yes, I agree, the wise are those who in all humility and without any ego are prepared to admit their mistakes, and search in them what one can learn

Dear Miranda Thanks for your interesting story. I am glad that eventually the learning was such in your case, you will perhaps never will do the same mistakes again. That is very important.

I

Dear all

I will narrate a story, which relates to my field visits for my Ph.D research. Let me say that I am quite safety conscious since childhood; but still more so when i lost my oldest brother in a bike accident when he was 25 and I was less than 16.

The story related to 1986, when I used to go to Faridabad industrial belt for understanding the labour disputes in all their dimensions. I used to ride a mobike 110 kilometers a day to and fro. The story related to a mistake that I might have committed, but I would have died and would not have been there today to share this with you.

One day, while going to the field the traffic stopped suddenly in front of me due to the red light. In front of me was a bus, and behind me was a heavy truck. Since i am safety conscious, I had a premonition that the guy behind me must have been at a good speed and may not be able to stop in time, so i suddenly turned my bike to the left of the bus in front of me. And, with in a second heard a big bang when the truck collided with a huge impact with the bus that was in front of me. I would have been surely killed beyond recognition if i had not taken the turn to the left; such was the impact of the collision.

I learnt following lessons:

1. Like an economist, always chose the least risky option when I am walking on the road or even when I am driving, where the possibility of accident is the least, even if there is some inconvenience in doing so.

2. My two sons at that time were 5 and 1 respectively. i inculcated safety values in them with an added punch. Also, I had made it a point and stuck to it that I will never buy a bike for them, as Indian roads are so unsafe for bike riders; despite their strong protests, I stuck to this and have no regrets about my decision. Every day more than two mobike riders die on Delhi roads every day. In fact, one day 8 died in separate accidents. Now when my sons are 33 and 28, and have become more mature, they agree that it is senseless to drive mobikes on Delhi roads.

@Debi, thanks for telling us a part of your life. I'm glad you are here this day :)

I must share a similar story; maybe many of us have this type of story to share. My cousin died in a car accident in Australia when I was 2nd year in university. Her mum was my dad's elder sister who took care of me since I was a child. She refused to hear of my driving a car! So I bought a bike, and I loved it.

Then she came to visit me, with my dad. She was horrified that it was so dangerous. She insisted that I should buy a car straightaway!

Dear Debi, here is my promised narrative. You asked about learning from mistakes, during the research or in other areas. This is the story of the last moment, concerned some social situation online and learning from wrong pre assumptions.

It was a mistake, from my side, to assume that scientific website can be run and managed by scholars with scientific degrees not by clever businessmen/women.

Such pre assumptions has deepened not only me, my thinking of situation of exclusion, but excellent scholars - professors, excluded from the community of scientific website, experiencing a painful discomfort.

I also succumbed, to some sort of illusion, and kind of internal academically build belief, that the decisions to remove a professor from social networking, can only make him/her equal scientific partners, in few times - professors . I'm academic oriented thinker not business manager. These pre assumptions were wrong. Today, thanks to one of my bright friend, I looked through the eyes and I realized that reviewers of activities and scientific achievements of professors on the forum, are people with no academic degrees and titles. This surprising discovery explains a lot of ruthlessness in the proceedings of efficient managers of different but non-academic ethics.

So today, 09.05.2014, I learned a lot from prior mistake as prior assumptions, that plunged further action, the strategy and self-esteem. Now I know why my messages sent, go unfulfilled. Another hierarchy of values. I think, this learned issue was very hilarious for me in the end. I laughed a lot. Illusions and absurdities are the best things to cope and clarify. They are so provoking thinking. Don't you think ?

Dear Beata and Shafig,

Your comments and assessments go hand in hand my mine. While new to this forum compared to many of those much more versed in academia here, I submit to those who are not simply more educated, but wiser through experience of age. There were admittedly those on this forum who had a slight proclivity to shut down discussion because they thought enough comments had been made on a certain topic. This is ill-advised since everyone should have a voice if someone poses a topic that speaks to them personally. Nevertheless, those who have done that still have valid contributions to share with the rest of us. I hope we have a chance to hear from them again.

I miss our dear Lijo because he was one who actually responded to my questions, and it gave an aspect of mentorship of which I had not thought.

I have not yet arrived at the point where mistakes are a real possibility since I have not yet attained IRB approval for my dissertation. I hope to further learn from all of you to avoid some of the pitfalls that some face. One becomes wise through learning from their own mistakes, yet one can certainly still become wise from learning from the mistakes of others.

While attaining my master's degree I felt as if I had broken the heart of my advisor when one of her colleagues told me (in front of her) that he would never have accepted my action research project. My goal is to prove him wrong through attaining my doctorate, and I intend on inviting him to my graduation ceremony. I want my former advisor there as well, even though she has retired. I am not sure what I did that he did not like, but I relish the opportunity to prove him wrong. Maybe that was his intent, I do not know.

There are other mistakes I have made in my past of which I am not proud that have nothing to do with academia. They were quite foolish in nature, yet I have learned from them, and I have been set on a better path to help those less fortunate than I.

I work in the medical field. So, my story will be brief due to privacy and confidentiality issues. Let's say, like story of Sherlock Holms. Normally when I come to work, there will be some data waiting to be assessed by me. I have to assess the data, type the report, and submit to my boss, who is a physician. In one of the country that I worked, if anyone met with a driving accidents must be assessed for medical disorders. There was a poor documentation by my colleague (not marked the details such as what type of study she did). There are two type of studies. I assumed that she did a particular study, and assessed the report. I submitted the report by boss. By boss signed it (based on my assessment) and informed the department of motor vehicle. The person's driving license was cancelled and he was asked to treat his medical condition. Subsequently, when this news came to my colleague (she got panicked). What happened was, the study that she did was that one I assumed. As there was no note to file or record for me to refer, I told that, by default, I assumed that this is the study that you did, I finalized the report and submitted and finally his license was cancelled.

Finally we rectified this mistake by informing to our boss, invite the person, apologized, and send a letter with a explanation. Finally he got his licence back.

What I learned in research and work was: "Documentation is the Key"

Now-a-days, I am more vigilant in terms of keeping records and documents.

I do have similar real time incidences as that of Debi & Miranda... But learnt a lot when .. lived through all soughts of people (really good ones.... and the otherwise ruthless/ painful ones)... cannot understand people with their looks