And what have you learned from this?
The most important question you can ask yourself.
That became my Dad’s favorite question to ask after I had moved out and gotten married. My sisters would do something stupid, like kids will do, and as they were dealing with the consequences of whatever stupid thing they had done, Dad would ask them, “And what have you learned from this?”
They would usually mumble something about not doing whatever stupid thing they had done ever again, and accept their punishment for doing it at all.
When my husband died and I moved back home, this had become well established as Dad’s favorite question to ask in any situation, and I heard it more times than I can count.
We had the opportunity to ask it of him many times, as well, such as the time when he decided he could saw through a PVC pipe with a steak knife, working against his leg.
Mom told him to use a cutting board, but nooo, he knew what he was doing. He destroyed his brand new slacks and wound up with a gash in his leg that should’ve gotten stitches. After that, he always used cutting boards.
And we in the family weren’t the only ones he asked this question of. He was always expecting others to learn from their mistakes — or, even better, the mistakes of others — because he very…