Can you tell us one thing that you really and truly learned from someone else's mistake?

That having an affair can and often leads to life long regret.

After 25 years of working for the same company, I learned that I better read the long ethics policy that each new employee signed when hired. We watched beloved co-workers get terminated for sexual harassment, using computers and other equipment for personal reasons, embezzling, sleeping with their direct report, claiming personal items on expense reports, etc. I loved my job and wanted to keep it. I also wanted to keep my reputation clean.

Watched someone ruin their life with drugs, so it will be nothing I will ever try.

My mother’s attitude as she has aged has not been pleasant to watch. She looks down on people, she talks down to people who are there to help her.

It is appalling and a lesson in how not to be.

I do not put my hands in my pockets while walking/hurrying across an icy street. A co-worker did this and slid on the ice. She couldn’t get her hands out of her pockets to break her fall. She broke her nose and skinned up her face.

My sister was a grumpy teenager around the time that I was becoming a grumpy pre-teen. I saw her relationship with our parents go to shit for a few years and I knew I didn’t want that. I kept a firm grip on my hormonal mood swings when interacting with my parents for a few years until the grumpiness went away. I’m pleased to say that I was best friends with my parents during my teenage years.

I also learned from my sister that I won’t get a pet impulsively. She had a cat and a hamster when she was in college and had no money. Fortunately, she ended up finding a friend who would take the cat off her hands once it was no longer convenient for her to have it, but the hamster was a sad story. It got ill and she couldn’t afford to take it to a vet. She finally found a vet who would put it down for cheap, but not before it had chewed a big hole through its own abdomen. As much as I really miss having pets while I’m at school, I know now that I’ll never get a pet until I can afford to get it cared for if it’s ill. I couldn’t live with the guilt if an animal suffered because I couldn’t pay for care for it.

I’m glad to be a younger sibling…

Not to get involved with a married man with a young child, even though he says he no longer loves his wife and he’s madly in love with you (actually my former friend). She did, against the advice of many well meaning friends. She never wanted kids, but there she was spending time with a toddler and growing resentful of the man because he had to spend a lot of time with his child, even when it wasn’t his “day.” He also didn’t acquire a quick divorce, so he was constantly having to deal with his wife, even though they were separated. This went on for almost a year. What was worse, is that she was friends with the wife too, when they were married, and he and she carried on their affair behind her back for almost 6 months. I was horrified that she thought it was OK to do any of this.

She claimed that she was madly in love with this guy and “had to make it work.” Of course he ultimately broke up with her when she started making demands. After they broke up, he almost immediately divorced his wife and married one of her other acquaintences. Ouch!

No matter how much I think I might be attracted to someone, I would simply not get involved with someone who wasn’t 100% available. And I probably wouldn’t be fishing in the same lake that contained friends of friends or former spouses of people I already know. I don’t like the idea of dating the exes of people I know, even if I despise that person. It’s just not kosher.

Smokers

My parents…....... love them both very much, but I learned some lessons from them.

I never smoked because my parents smoked so much and I hated the smell. My mom died of emphysema. It was an extremely uncomfortable death. They didn’t know it was bad for you in their day. Nowadays, there’s not much chance of not knowing the hazards.

I knew from a young age not to believe getting pregnant would “make a family”.

@Neizvestnaya – Great answer