Experience is not a very good teacher.

A cliche, that appears to be universally believed is, “Experience is the Best Teacher.” My father once told me he disagreed. He said, “Experience is not the best teacher. It may be a good teacher, but it is not the best teacher.” He then went on to explain that experience can extract an extremely high price. It is not only costly, it can inflict pain. And learning through experience is slow. Just think how long it would take you to learn something if experience is the only way you had to learn. Yes, experience can teach. And yes, you can learn. And the lessons you learn are not easily forgotten. But there are far better ways to learn than having to rely on experience. Learning from observation, listening, the experience of others are all much faster, less painful, and less costly methods of learning.

All this is not to say you should not learn the lessons experience is teaching you. By all means, learn what experience has to teach you. But don’t rely on experience along. Utilized all the other methods of learning first. Experience is perhaps the most inefficient and dangerous method of learning.