It is said–by whom, I haven’t bothered to track down–that we humans learn from shared stories of success, and from stories of failure. Me? I’m pretty obsessed with stories of failure because I’ve learned more from MY mistakes than from my successes. Most of my successes I gloss right on over. Which is probably why my emails tend to start with some version of, “Don’t make this mistake or you will die.” Super motivating, I know.

Which brings us to our story.

It took a while to recognize that moving to Iran had been a tactical error.

I’d disregarded the posted travel advisory at the entrance of the passport office:a big, yellow warning sign that said, in effect: Do not expect the U.S. State Department to rescue you if you are stupid enough to travel to Libya, Iran, or Syria. And the bearded customs official who relieved me of my American passport when I entered the country. I was, from that point on, officially an extension of my Iranian husband. I couldn’t get a job, leave the country, or God knows what else without receiving his written permission.

To make a very long, unpleasant story short, I spent the next five years wrestling with an army of invasive in-laws, a husband trapped between two worlds, and the requirements of an infamously restrictive culture.

I came to recognize–and this took some time– the undeniable precariousness of the life I had chosen. I witnessed a whole host of women lose much of what they loved—their homes, their kids, and their security. I spotted the setup for disaster in my own married life. What, I wondered, had ever allowed me to think, even for a minute, that trouble couldn’t befall me?

Skip ahead two decades.

It was on a beach, in between scuba diving amongst hammerheads and questioning my motivation for doing so, that I opened up the book I’d brought on vacation, Little Bee. A gorgeous novel written by a Brit named Chris Cleave. The story of two women—a young African and an Englishwoman— whose lives collide on a Nigerian beach one fateful day.

I marveled at the book from a writer’s perspective— its structure, use of metaphor, spot on dialogue, and building of tension. (I just love the opening line: “Most days I wish I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl.”) Yet it was the English character, Sarah, that got me thinking some more about recklessness, motivation, failure, and the price of our mistakes. (Mine felt astronomical.)

Sarah has found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Married to a man she’s not sure she loves, dissatisfied with suburban life, questioning her career, armed with a pair of free airline tickets, she’d been too busy running from her troubles to consider the wisdom of her holiday destination. Too interested in escaping the mundane, and seeking the novel.

It’s only when Sarah faces a situation outside of her normal purview—coming face to face with two young African girls and the soldiers who want to kill them— that she recognizes how ill-equipped she is to help herself, let alone anybody else. She is designed to handle the challenges of her home environment, not the incomprehensible circumstances she finds on some third-world beach.

The problem is, and this is what you don’t get when you’re young, or reckless, some mistakes have too big a price tag associated with them. Some mistakes just can’t be taken back. Some mistakes change everything. And generally not for the good.

Half naked on a beach before a band of murderers, a hair’s breadth from being gang raped, Sarah considers, for the first time, the precariousness of the position she’s placed herself in.

As an aside, and I may not be telling you anything that you don’t already know, but these moments are truly breathtaking when they happen to you.

Sara is changed by her horrific encounter in Africa.The woman who flew off on holiday is not the same one who returns. Such is the way with all good novels. Such is the way of life.

I was talking about the ideas the book brought up on my morning run with Walt. The parallel with my own life. The notion of recklessness versus adventurousness, of playing it safe versus being plain dumb, of failure by default versus failure by experiment. Of our constant need to escape rather than to face our issues. About the stupid mistakes that have damaged us the most. And we agreed that the thing about life is that none of us gets away unscathed. We all suffer loss. We all fail. We all get betrayed. We all betray. We all die. But not before we learn some mighty useful lessons. And, if we’re lucky, we get to share such takeaways with others.

That’s the thing about good books, regardless of the genre: they make readers ask the big questions.They help us decide what kind of person we want to be while we’re on the planet. What we can learn about ourselves along the way so we can minimize the damage.

I suppose the good news is that your insight, born of your mistakes, can serve as a powerful mirror for your readers.

I’m guessing your successes can too, but we’ll leave that concept for another day.

From T.S. Eliot:

We shall not cease from exploration.
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.