Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.

Some lessons only cost you money, time and embarrassment because you refused the cheaper version. Advice, a book, someone else’s account of the same mistake: all of these are available beforehand, and they are nearly free. Learning it yourself works too, but the bill arrives afterwards and it is rarely small. The question is not whether you will learn, only what the tuition will be.

Before the next decision that matters, find one person who has already made it and ask what went wrong. Take the warning seriously even when your own case feels different. Most cases feel different and most are not.