i was pretty consistent at learning from them, but i recently repeated a really big one. my brain and my heart have been suffering for it.

One of my favorite books is Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. In it she says,

“The karmic philosophy appeals to me on a metaphysical level because even in one lifetime it’s obvious how often we must repeat our same mistakes, banging our heads against the same old addictions and compulsions, generating the same old miserable and often catastrophic consequences, until we can finally stop and fix it. This is the supreme lesson of karma (and also of Western philosophy, by the way)- take care of the problems now, or else you’ll just have to suffer again later when you screw everything up the next time. And that repetition of suffering- that’s hell. Moving out of that endless repetition to a new level of understanding- that’s where you’ll find heaven.”

both.
i find that if i tend to want something bad enough, i keep making the same mistakes around that.
^{that probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.}
guys, for instance. even if i know that i can do better and that they’re assholes, i still go back to them.

Motivated by a very strong fear of failure.

When you DON’T want to fail, you do everything you can to succeed.