The shortcut that skips the lesson is the longest route you’ll ever take.

Skipping the understanding gets you past one obstacle and leaves you unequipped for every similar one after it. The time you saved is borrowed from later and comes back as the same problem, unrecognized, in a harder version. Unlearned things tend to return with a bigger price on them.

When you get through something without knowing why it worked, spend ten minutes finding out. Redo the part you copied, alone, until you could explain it to someone else. That small backtrack is what turns one solved problem into a skill.