What is the difference between making a mistake and choosing to do something stupid?

Someone who makes a mistake tries to learn from it.

Someone who does something stupid enjoys it and refuses to learn.

Sometimes doing the right thing is much more difficult. We can fall into a pattern that is much easier to stay in than to break out of it. An addict may know that taking drugs is messing up their lives but not have the strength of will to stop.

I once saw a comedy routine with Bob Newhart playing a psychologist who limited himself to 5 minute appointments. Whatever problem the patient complained of, the advice was always the same. Stop doing that. If only life was so simple.

The difference is intent.

A mistake is unintentional

Doing something stupid implies an active choice (i.e. intent) to do that thing

Example:

I am walking on the roof of my garage. I trip on the dead body up there. and fall off the roof, landing on my car and breaking the windshield. That was a mistake.

I am walking on the roof my garage and look down, thinking that if I get a running start, I can clear the car and land in the swimming pool next to the driveway. So I walk backward, then start running forwards, jump off the roof towards the swimming pool. But alas, I had calculated wrong and I landed on my car and broke the windshield. That was choosing to do something stupid

Deleted by pachy

I don’t think there is always a difference between a mistake and a stupid action, and I don’t agree that the difference is one of intent. There is overlap, but it is not complete.

Doing a stupid thing can also be a mistake. You can’t make a mistake intentionally, but you can do a stupid thing intentionally.

Now, your question literally specifies choosing to do something stupid. So, there is no overlap there. But I think that we often interpret stupid actions as intentional, maybe because of the benefit of hindsight, or in the case of observing someone else’s behaviour, the benefit of our own experience.

If you make a mistake, it’s always a mistake. Sometimes people do something stupid that actually turns out well.. Like the first successful hang glider.

Kissing a hooker is a mistake.

Kissing your sister is choosing to do something stupid.

@Blondesjon – unless the hooker is your sister, in which case you have even more tzoris..

Human beings are fallible. They look at the facts of reality before them and make a decision.
But, because they are fallible, on occasion they will

a. Not have all the information they need to make an objectively correct assessment of the circumstance, so they do their best and wind up “losing the bet” or…

b. Make a whimsical decision based on how they feel, which may or may not have anything to do with reality, but decide to use that as a basis for decision making.

a. Is a mistake.
b. Is stupid

Doing something wrong twice due to ignorance is a mistake. Doing the same thing a third and fourth time is a stupid choice.