The truth of this matter is that experience is not the best teacher, though it is a very fast way of learning things, not just that, it is also a best way to teach, I mean when a person teaches another person based on reality and experience, he tends to teach better.
We tend to assume when we don't have a clear understanding of a particular thing and so when we have the experience, we get more clarity and learn about that thing via experience.
I got to realize that there is nothing that you cannot learn with a book, why do I mean? I was checking Google sometimes ago, guess what I asked Google. How can I be a thief? And surprisingly I saw results on how to be a thief.
Come to think of it, if I can search for such a thing and then I found a result to it, please what else do you think that we can't learn via books. There are things that we watch in movies and then we think that it's barrable and that we can pass on from so easily.
For example, I have always assumed that if I was to be in an accident, like a car accident, I have this mentality that if I see the car coming very close to me and I can't out run it, there is a way I am going to jump so high that my legs will be at least touch the top of the wind screen, (and then I know some tricks on stunts and flipping so id use them there)
But then it came to my head that it's just an imagination, it can't happen this way, and I know that car accidents are not as easy as I am thinking and so I have already learned from that, but if I say that no, I want to learn from experience, I could try going to the road to experience it, but I'm going to be tagged foolish because it's a very stupid thing to do and then when I wake up on the hospital bed, I would like to tell my story to other people outside that were thinking like me, saying they should learn by obedience and not experience.
There are also people that think that when they have sex, that are able to control themselves so they don't get impregnated, but they haven't had sex before, so when they have sex they eventually get pregnant and so they have to tell the story in the pain of experience, and after then you'd see them say “I HATE HUMANITY" most especially the female gender, forgetting that they were supposed to just abstain from it the begining...
Source
Let's look at this example.
When we were children,we used to use lanterns or candles for night lights if there is no electrical power supply, and then the way the fire stands in the lantern or on the candles used to be an unsolved mysteries to us as children, and so we always go close to the fire just to know how it works and how it felt, cause it looks amazing, “maybe when I put it in my mouth it will taste like my mummy's breast" and this thing keeps ringing in their head and then one day, we decide to check it out, but mother or anyone older closet to us at the moment says no, do not touch, it will burn you, and then we'd smile at the person not knowing what they are even saying, and we will be relaxed for the next 30 seconds to 1 minute, and then we will go back to that fire cause the hot fire seems so cool to us, and then we were stopped again, and this happens over and over and over again, until mother changed her mind on stopping you from touching the fire which was disobedience due to ignorance, and so she lets us put our hand in the fire believing that experience would rather teach me than obedience, and then when the child successful touches the fire, there is a rephrase in the child's mind, (ouch! I thought this fire was beautiful and cool, why did it have to hot an hurt me, I will never play with fire again, fire Is my first we enemy) and then they regain consciousness and then start to cry and then every since that day till they know right from left, they hated fire and never played with fire, some can even cry that you are bringing fire close to them, just because of their experience.
To end this note, like I said in the beginning, experience is not the best teacher, instead, obedience is, it might not be fun, it might not be suitable for you, but it's the best teacher.
Experience will only make you understand the WHY and DISADVANTAGES behind that thing you are avoiding now.
PS: this post is dedicated to the Hivelearners Weekly Featured Contents Week 55 edition 2.