Life is but a long long data collection process.
There isn't goodness and badness in data.
It is either straightforward or non-trivial to understand.
Some data confirms your experience and knowledge.
Some data contradicts.
When it contradicts, you bang your head against the wall, question your prior knowledge and all the effort that went into learning that knowledge.
Did you really think you know XYZ?
Did the previous experiment mislead you?
What was wrong with the experiment?
How was I so comfortable and confident in what I thought I knew?
It’s a painful slap in the face.
But this is where we have to crunch down some more to design a better experiment.
Change your parameter, improve your resolution, sacrifice the resolution of something else and design a complementary experiment.
This might take months of preparations.
Then you conduct another experiment.
Put yourself out there and test your new hypothesis. Test what you think you now know.
Because not knowing what you might possibly know, is worse than the fear of failure.
You might get some good (= straightforward) data.
You might get another set of bad (= non-trivial) data.
Regardless, you analyze, re-interpret, and use it to design another experiment in hopes to unravel some tiny part of the massive and intricate picture of Nature.
Now replace the last word in the previous sentence to Human Nature.
Some data confirms
- your experience, your understanding of the others around you, your understanding of yourself.
Some data contradicts everything you thought were unshakable.
When it contradicts, you bang your head against the wall, question your prior knowledge and all the effort that went into learning that knowledge.
Did you really think you know yourself / this person?
Did the previous experience (memories) mislead you to think something is more / less important?
What was wrong with your action / reaction?
How was I so comfortable and confident in what I thought I knew?
It’s a painful, painful, slap in the face.
But this is where we have to crunch down some more to design your next step.
Change a little of yourself, improve your insight, perhaps let go of the comfortable but outdated knowledge about something. This might take months of preparations that includes tears, heartache, headache, unanswered questions, and never-healing wound in what used to be the purely happy memories.
Then you conduct the new experiment.
You might get some good ( = straightforward) data.
You might get some bad ( = non-trivial) data.
No data means nothing.
All data means something.
You just have to interpret, unearth the hidden signals that might be deep under the noise.
It’s a painstaking process.
It likely won’t make much sense at first.
It may not always be fun.
Regardless, you’ll get something out of it because
you are;
smart enough to figure out,
perseverant enough to push through,
kind enough to never inflict such pain on others,
mature enough to not hold grudges but never tolerate disrespect like this again,
and brave enough to try it all over again.
you have;
loyal and trustworthy friends to help you in the process,
family to always be on your side,
people who have been in your shoes to remind you "You are not alone",
and people you haven’t met to look forward to.
And remember, the wave function of life has time-dependent and time-independent component.
Some things change with time. Some things never do. Both are required for the true description, and all experience will be contained in both components.