It’s both.

But in an individual’s reality, it depends on their perspective. It leads to either choosing the mistake or the lesson.

It’s a choice that has an impact on how one deals with the situation.

If it’s a mistake, guilt or shame comes to the foreground, causing stress and making it hard to think clearly. The past or the future dominates one’s thinking.

If it’s a lesson, curiosity and the desire to learn are in the foreground. They ease being present and experiencing the situation with all the available details.

In “If Life is a game, these are the rules,” Chérie Carter-Scott suggests that moving from the perspective of a mistake to one of a lesson requires practicing four basic skills: compassion, forgiveness, ethics, and humor.

Compassion is seen as a skill that enables one to open up to the situation without being overwhelmed by it. Forgiveness is the skill that erases emotional debt and releases us from resentment. Ethics is our ability to distinguish right from wrong beyond what society tells us it to be in general. Humor assists us in releasing energy whenever something goes wrong.