Judgments and assumptions about ourselves prevent us from adapting to our environment.

When we are young, we follow every thought and every notion without concern for success or failure. The older we get, the harder it is to adapt because of what we think we know about ourselves.

Some lessons are learned properly; cheating death by the skin of our teeth. Other lessons are mis-learned, as the failure was a function of the specific moment and not an aspect of our identity.