Considering the source...

In flight school we have what we call "gouge."  Gouge is basically insight that is passed down that is supposed to enable you to succeed in the tasks ahead.  As students make it through each phase, they pass their lessons learned down to their peers behind them in order to make the struggle that much more bearable for their successors.  Gouge takes many forms, from verbal to written and even electronic.  Everything from tips on ways to remember procedures to how to study for tests and sometimes even what's on the tests is passed along by benevolent student aviators to enable the success of their shipmates.  

After almost two years in the flight program, (yes I fear I am becoming the Van Wilder of Naval Flight training) I am coming to realize that as important, or actually more important than the gouge itself is the source from where the gouge is attained.  You see, some gouge is old gouge.  Tests have changed, procedures have been updated or the aircraft themselves have been altered, and if the gouge is outdated - then using it not only fails to help you - it hurts you.  Even good gouge can be detrimental depending on its dispenser.  For a student like me, who isn't exactly "aerodynamically gifted" advice from a Emory Riddle graduate who spent four years studying rocket scientists might only serve to confuse me.  Perhaps I would be better served by the advice of a history major who struggled through the program and learned to understand the flying process in its simplest possible terms.  It is important to garner our knowledge from those who have not only true, but applicable lessons to give.  For instance, my rocket scientist predecessor might tell me not even to study for certain phases, that they were so easy that I would do better to focus my attention on other aspects of preparation, only to find myself completely overwhelmed by the very subjects that he breezed through.

I note these differences not to forewarn anyone entering the flight program, (though I suppose this may also serve that purpose) but to recognize the applicability of this lesson in our lives in general.  We all seek the advice of those who have gone before us.  Bookstores are full of self-help books that seek to impart life's lessons and formulas for success.  What is hilarious is that all too often these sources can be absolutely contradictory.  One book says to find a job that you enjoy and you'll never work a day in your life.  The other says to understand that work is a source of income and that true happiness must come from the other aspects in your life.  One says eat no carbs.  The other says eat no meat.  The confusing part is that they all seem to come from sources that boast great success.  Even free advice comes in the form of contradiction.  Some say pursue your dreams at all costs, while other assure you that life is better lived going with the flow.  

I guess part of the discrepancy is that few failures write books on the things they did wrong to get them to where they are.  It is easy for the successful to endorse the idea that we should follow our dreams to the bitter end, for they were able to achieve theirs!  Would those who tried and failed and actually met the bitter end advise the same?  

This leaves those of us looking for some good "gouge" wondering what source to choose, for we have certainly determined that mere success does not in and of itself qualify gouge as "good."

In fact, it leads me to wonder if the best sources might be those who never met success at all.  Perhaps those who struggled and failed are those from whom we can learn the most.  For those who met easy success probably learned few lessons, but those who grasped the bitter end could tell us not only what they might have done differently in their failed pursuit of success, but if the struggle was worth it.