The world we accept tends to be the world we see and we assume that we see all there is – but what we see is never all there is.

How we see it, too, is a larger issue. We have two systems of thinking (see Thinking Fast And Slow by Daniel Kahneman for a more in depth look into this) that we know of so far. The first system gives us our feelings and inclinations – our ‘gut’, as it were – and the second system is how we decide whether they become our attitudes and intentions.

This simplification certainly doesn’t represent these systems and how they interact, but the example provides a firm enough basis to realize that our prejudices, which are not limited to those we consider bad (sexism, racism, et al), are decided at some point by system 2, our rational and conscious mind, and left untouched unless we decide to revisit these prejudices.

What we see is all there is, even when we know what we see is not all there is. We can only act on what we know, and as disturbing as that should be, it isn’t. And this is where mistakes come in to being valuable.

Mistakes, when recognized, teach us to look for more beyond what we knew. In the graveyard of these mistakes we find progress.

And every day, we should strive for beyond, if only to make more mistakes to bury.