LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE
Beneficial Conversion
EXPERIENCE always provides opportunities to learn lessons. But there are very few people in this world who seize them. Experience can always teach one something of value and should be a source of intellectual development. But, as a rule, people fail to understand the positive gain they can derive from bad situations. This is because, in untoward circumstances, their first impulse is to complain and indulge in negative feelings rather than think of what their experience can teach them.
It is a law of nature that when any unpleasant event takes place, it is not necessarily the fault of others. It is remarkable how often it happens in such cases that to a greater or lesser degree both the parties are to blame. More often than not, it transpires that whenever there is any unpleasantness, it is seen as a one-sided affair. People tend to gloss over their own culpability and lay the entire blame at the door of others. This happens in almost 99 per cent of the cases.
But, in this way, holding a one-sided opinion is against the law of nature. It is on historical record that even the Companions of the Prophet had to take their share in the responsibility for undesirable happenings. One instance of such an event—the Battle of Uhud—took place during the lifetime of the Prophet. In this battle, the Companions of the Prophet were initially victorious. But later on, due to their own ineptitude, they were forced to incur heavy losses. (3: 152-153)
One should invariably treat experiences as occasions for learning lessons, rather than making them grounds for complaint. Doing so means that the person concerned has been able to change a negative event in his life into something positive. He has converted his loss into a gain
One should invariably treat experiences as occasions for learning lessons, rather than making them grounds for complaint. Doing so means that the person concerned has been able to change a negative event in his life into something positive. He has converted his loss into a gain. On the contrary, those who on such occasions are inspired to do nothing but complain and nurse feelings of hatred deprive themselves of any gain which they could have had from an unpleasant experience. In this way they have failed to seize a golden opportunity to learn something of value and have thus disadvantaged themselves in ways they cannot begin to understand.