Someone once said to me, “A smart man is a person who learns from their own mistakes,” which don’t get me wrong is a great philosophy. To be able to learn from the problems that you allowed yourself to inherit. But I believe that a smart man is a person who learns from another’s mistakes.” Throughout my life I have been faced with decisions as to whether or not-to do what seems to be the right thing or to turn my back against the crowd. As to whether or not to listen to this, smoke that, drink this, drive back, or lie when you’re in a tight situation, these dilemmas are bound to happen at least once in a lifetime. When these types of events begin to take place in front of my eyes, I do my best to remind myself of a time when one of my friends, siblings, parents, or any other person on earth for that matter was faced with the exact same situation. Within the past few years, these words prevented myself from getting in the same car as a friend who was rushed to the hospital due to a serious car accident. Luckily, they survived but with several broken bones and minor head trauma. The thought of knowing that if I had not remembered that a sibling of mine died because of the same reason, who knows, I might have been joining them in the afterlife. There is almost always a situation in which someone could relate problems to his or her own life. Whether or not they choose to deal with the situation in that way is entirely up to them. Some people might say that a person has to experience an even in order to learn from it, but why does and event have to happen to you for you to be able to process whether or not a specific thing is good or not. We as a society want to do things to say that we did it; so that we can brag to one another about how cool we are; or to satisfy our curiosity even though we say we’ll quit some time soon, but to actually find out that it becomes a mistake, a habit, or even an addiction. It’s almost as if you were to follow in someone’s footsteps without stepping in the same footprints that brought them trouble. I can guarantee that a person will have a much more successful life by learning from another’s mistakes, this I believe.