Lesson Learnt

Its been a year since I rode a cycle. I haven't touched one since the day some idiot stole my favourite cycle. It was a beautiful blue bike. It was kinda like a mountain bike... actually, it looked like a mountain bike tamed for city use! (does that make sense?). Whatever it was, I loved it. It was the only cycle in the shop that could be adjusted to my height. All other bikes were too short. I miss that bike a lot and haven't been able to get myself to take my dad's cycle and go for a spin :(

But yesterday as I was practising my driving skills, I began to wonder... Its been a year since I last rode a cycle... if I took one out now, would I remember how to ride a cycle? Or would I have forgotten it? Would I have to again learn from scratch, fall a few times before I get it right? I realized then that all that trouble wouldn't be necessary. Even if I didnt touch a cycle for the next 5-10 years, I'd still remember how to ride one. Its a lesson that has to be learnt only once.

Life teaches us different lessons. And each is one type. I was thinking about the different types of lessons that we learn, a made a small list. Here's how it goes. If you have anything else to add on to this list (I know it is incomplete) please feel free to do so :)

Some lessons in life are like the cycle lesson. You need to learn it only once in life and it stays with you forever. Even if you haven't thought about it in years, when you need it the most, it will come back to you

Some lessons are exactly the opposite to the above one. No matter how many times life teaches you the lesson, you tend to repeat the mistake again and again and take forever to learn the lesson well enough so that you can avoid making the same mistakes in future.

Some lessons don't even have to be taught. You just know it somehow. You don't have to make a mistake to learn the lesson. Its just there in you.

Some lessons are learnt the hard way. The mistake you make hurts you so bad, that along with the lesson, you learn pain and whenever you need to use the lesson and try to remember it, the pain comes back along with the lesson.

Some lessons are learnt by someone teaching you. You listen to the person, understand your lesson and make sure you apply it at the right time to avoid making any mistake.

Sometimes, someone tries to teach you the lesson so that you don't make any mistakes, but you ignore it thinking its no big deal, then make the mistake, realize that it was in fact a very big deal, then regret not listening to that someone. This is another lesson learnt the hard way. (And this is how my cycle got stolen. I should have listened to some adivce that was given to me that morning. I didn't follow the advice and ended up having my cycle stolen. Till this day, I regret not listening to that person. If I had listened, I'd still have my blue bike... *sigh*)

Some lessons in life can be mastered only by practise. Lots and lots of practise. (I guess anger management is one such lesson for me :">)

Some lessons are just theory lessons which you just remember in your head

Some lessons required practical sessions where you apply the lesson in a situation to find the solution to a problem.

I know there are many more. But I will stop here. (the word "lesson" got repeated so many times that its beginning to sound weird in my head and I am wondering if there exists such a word in the English language or if I made that up!) Again, as usual, as I say in most of my posts, I hope this one made sense... It made sense to me because I have learnt at least one lesson under each type I mentioned. Let me know if there are any other types of lessons you may have learnt in your life.

I'll consider that a lesson learnt.....