A Legacy of Experience

Sometimes we assume that the lessons which another generation has learned don’t apply to the present. And on this assumption, young people are often impatient with the counsel and cautioning of parents. But there are two ways by which the lessons of life are learned: by our own experience and by the experience of others. When we read, we are drawing upon the experience of others. When we go to school, we are taught the experience of others. We learn the laws, the theories, the conclusions others have come to. The experience of others is a great heritage, and the more we learn from it the less of life we waste. If every researcher insisted on going back to the beginning to perform all the experiments that all his predecessors had performed, life would largely be wasted in proving what had already been proved. If every explorer were to ignore all previous exploration, life would largely be wasted in finding what had already been found. If travelers were to ignore the road signs and danger signals, life could largely be wasted in repeating mistakes that other men have made. We have a great heritage of revealed and discovered truth. But we lose a lot of life when we ignore what has repeatedly been proved and insist on going back to the beginning again and again. And you who are young and sometimes impatient with the counsel and precautions of parents, this you should know: In their love for you, they are only trying to pass on the you a heritage of the experience they have had, just as they would pass on precious heirlooms or money or property . They are only trying to pass on knowledge of some of the timeless principles – of truths that do not change simply because the times have changed. The more you can learn from the past, the less you will have to pay for the costly and painful lessons of life when they are learned through the process of trial and error. And deliberately throwing away experience from reliable sources is as foolish, if not more foolish, than deliberately throwing away money or property or precious possessions that we could have had.