Life's hard lessons

How long does it take for us finally get what life is all about?  A very long time, if ever would be my guess.  Yet, sometimes it just pops into existence, in your head, giving birth to a revelation.  I dawned me not 5 minutes ago.   Life is the sum of the lessons we learn.
There are many lessons I’ve learned over my almost 42 years walking on this planet.  Many lessons were enjoyable, some the result of my own stupidity, some very very horrible, and the most meaningful are the hardest to bear.
When you’re a young child it has a lot to do with what will hurt you physically or what will tick off your parents.  Sometimes it is both.  You don’t stick your hand on a red-hot stove burner, because it will hurt, for a long time.  You don’t talk back to your parents or they won’t feed you.  Or as my mother would say if we talked back “the raven’s are going to come and pick your eyes out”.  I do believe that’s in the Bible somewhere.  Some of those ‘scared threats’ are quite effective.
When you’re a teenager, you are starting to feel your way through life more daringly, boosted by new hormones, and feelings of immortality.   And it travels with you into your young adult life.  Then the feeling of immortality drains from your reality the first time your friend drives off an embankment and dies, because he thought he was indestructible and beer only makes him more so.  
As a young adult you also have freedom, money .. the freedom to spend your money … stupidly.   Which I did.   Often.  Money I didn’t even have.  It should be against the law to give credit cards to anyone under 30.
You also learn that the result of sex many times … is children.  Yes, can you believe it?  And passion has a clever way of taking control of better judgment.  
And those children grow learning from their own mistakes, lessons.  You try to guide them, but they are a separate being.  They don’t have to listen to you.  Not really.  They do often, so they can get fed.  But if it wasn’t for that … do you think they’d listen at all?  
Maybe.  They have to learn their own lessons, just like you did.  It hurts us to watch, because we know how painful those lessons are.  But we are the sum of our lessons.  Not the sum of our parents, friends, parables from a good book.  We are our mistakes, and our triumphs … and our quiet revelations.