Unteachable lessons
jasonleow • 7 Apr 2025 •
I really love this idea, by Chris Williamson:
There’s a special category of lesson - one which you cannot discover without experiencing it firsthand. There is a certain subset of advice that for some reason, we all refuse to learn through instruction… Things like:
Money won’t make you happy.
Fame won’t fix your self worth…
Unteachable lessons.
I feel I got some unteachable lessons in my indie hacking—and life in general—I feel I’m only going to learn the hard way:
- Self-promotion isn’t evil.
- Money isn’t dirty.
- Working hard isn’t sufficient.
- You can’t be everything to everyone.
- You can save your loved ones.
- Saying no is okay, even good.
There’s always the gap between “I already know this in my head”, versus “I know this in my bones”.
And the only way to close that gap is through pain.
Comments
Heh yeah maybe I was being dramatic. But it resonated because it seems a lot of my breakthroughs come from breakdowns… so some form of pain, frustration, or struggle seems to be common. The ones that I got it from positive inspiration are nice but it doesn’t ‘stick’ as much…
I’m not sure if pain is the only way to register the lesson 😅
But this reminds me of “selling perfume”: You can’t describe a perfume. You have to smell it! (Unless, of course, it’s a scent you already smelled).
Observation is not experience.