Are our efforts ever wasted?

Recently did a couple of Blogs about job attraction. One was “what Draws you to a Job” and the other, "Architects & Hey Dad". In those blogs I took, first the negative and then the positive aspects of choosing your future profession based on what one sees depicted of it on TV. There, my emphasis and in both posts, was that even when positive, one should always check a career move out with much more care than simply taking what one sees on TV as real reality. Still wise advice I believe, however Anyway I received some comments from my oldest, but not older, sister in regard to my comments on, "Architects & Hey Dad", that has prompted me to look again at this issue and address two issues that she raised from it.

I already addressed the first one in my previous blog, under “How Well Can One Know A future Profession In Advance?” So here I will now attempt to address her second main comment here. Which was/is:

“Also I have come to believe that no time spent studying or working in a field that "is not for you” is ever really wasted. Something new is always learnt even it is only learning to be involved with others in your field, and that it is not want you want to do or be. It can make things clearer in what you might really want to do. Its really on how you look at it! Half full or half empty.”

Again a very true point, and one I couldn’t agree more with from the view that we can and in fact should, learn something from every new experience, even the Bad. However I still think it better, if not best to learn from other’s bad mistakes, rather than to make them yourself.

So if you have made a wrong choice somewhere along the line in the past, certainly learn from it, but also learn to be more careful and selective in future, so that you can learn, without the personal cost of time and effort and even pain, and choose something that will hopefully teach your more and nicer lessons at a much reduced coast of time and effort.

Our lives are short enough as they are, not to waste time from making obvious wrong choices. Goodness knows we make enough as it is without the need to find more through what is often just a little lack of extra research and activity first on our part, isn’t it?
So to answer my opening title, "Are our efforts ever wasted?" The short answer is no, but!

No, no effort can truly be judged as wasted, but they can be, and often are, judged as not a valuable use of resources and time, when other/better/ more practical options could/should have been used.

So again I urge you whether it be with a prospective new job, or house purchase, or any other significant life change, do some research first, learn from the mistakes of others, and if you do have to make mistakes, try and make new ones so that others can benefit from your bad experiences without unnecessarily making them their own. Well that’s my view! What’s yours?