"Experience is a brutal teacher..."

My wife and I have been binge-watching the television series, "Criminal Minds".  Each episode (at least through season 5) starts and ends with a famous quote.  One of the recent episodes started with a quote by the British author and theologian, C.S. Lewis.  Lewis is perhaps most famous for writing the children's fantasy series, The Chronicles of Narnia.  Here was the quote:

"Experience is a brutal teacher. But you learn, my God, do you learn."

Unfortunately, there is no record that C.S. Lewis ever said this quote.  Regardless, it is a great quote.  I am reminded of a similar quote by former major league baseball player, Vern Law (who won the Cy Young Award in 1960 while pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates), who said:

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards."

And finally, there is one more quote that I want to share.  I promise I will move on to an actual discussion or vignette to try to tie these three quotes together.  The science fiction author, Terry Pratchett once said:

“Wisdom comes from experience.  Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.”

Hopefully, I can convince you that (1) living through a time of crisis, struggle, or hardship will help you learn, (2) learning through these life experiences is the best way to gain wisdom, and (3) through wisdom, you will be better equipped and prepared to deal with the next crisis in the future!  As I often do in these posts, I would like to illustrate my point with a lesson from an important historical figure - in this case, two famous polar explorers from the Heroic Age of Polar Exploration (which roughly began at the end of the 19th century and lasted until shortly after the First World War), Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton.  

I have posted about Ernest Shackleton several times in the past (see most recently, "Better a live donkey than a dead lion...").  Shackleton is clearly someone that I have enjoyed reading and writing about for quite some time.  If you are interested, there is a documenary (actually, there are several) of a recent expedition in which the modern-day explorer, Tim Jarvis leads a team that attempted (successfully) to re-create Shackleton's famous voyage in the Endurance.  It's called Chasing Shackleton - you will be amazed!

Anyway, as I previously talked about in my post, "Better a live donkey than a dead lion...", Shackleton actually accompanied Robert Falcon Scott on his attempt to reach the South Pole for the first time on the Discovery Expedition of 1901-1904 (Shackleton was Third Officer on the Discovery).  The expedition was both a failure and a success - they failed to reach the South Pole, but they did set a new Farthest South record (82°17′ S).  Scott, Shackleton, and Edward Wilson left on the final push for the South Pole on November 2, 1902.  Despite passing the existing Farthest South record of 78°50′ S just 9 days later, the rest of the journey was slow-going.  The three men suffered snow blindness, frost bite, and scurvy.  They eventually had to kill the 22 sled dogs due to poor diet and overwork (the weakest dogs were killed early on to feed the other dogs).  They eventually reached set the new Farthest South record on December 30, 1902, but gave up on reaching the South Pole.  Even though all three explorers were suffering, Shackleton was the weakest of the three.  Scott reported (and Shackleton corroborated) in his journal that Shackleton was unable to pull a sledge on his own (he also reported that they had to carry him on their sledge, although Shackleton disputed this account).  

Shackleton and Scott remained respectful and cordial in public, but in private their rivalry became more heated.  Shackleton wanted to beat Scott to the South Pole in order to salvage his wounded pride.  Shackleton would lead his own expedition - the Nimrod Expedition of 1907-1909.  While Shackleton again failed to achieve his ultimate objective, he set a new Farthest South record of 88° 23' S, coming within just 97.5 miles from the South Pole.  He recorded in his diary, "We have shot our bolt and the tale is 88° 23' S."  He had learned from his previous experiences, a successful expedition was one in which they would reach their objective (the South Pole) and return home alive.  He knew that there was no way that they would have made the South Pole and survive on the return journey.  As he told his wife, "Better a live donkey than a dead lion."

Scott, on the other hand, did not learn his lesson.  Shortly after Shackleton's failure, he led the Terra Nova Expedition of 1910-1913 (officially called the British Antarctic Expedition).  Again, the expedition was both a success and a failure.  Scott and a small team would reach the South Pole, but they would not be the first to do so.  The Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen and his team beat Scott by 34 days.  More importantly, Scott's entire party of five died of starvation and exposure on the return trip.

Shackleton had learned from his previous two trips to Antarctica.  To paraphrase Vern Law above, he not only passed the test, but he learned from his experiences as well.  He would also learn from Scott's experience on the Terra Nova Expedition.  In this case, again to paraphrase one of the three quotes above, Shackleton's gained important experience (and wisdom) through Scott's own lack of wisdom (pushing so hard to achieve his goal of reaching the South Pole that his team ran out of food for the return journey).  Shackleton would use these lessons in leadership for the ultimate test of his life with the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917 aboard the Endurance.  It was not his final expedition to Antarctica (he would die of a heart attack on his last trip to Antarctica in 1922), but it was the one for which he was the most famous.