Is 'Stupid' a Prerequisite?

What if life was like college, with courses and majors and professors and yes, prerequisites? Are there certain classes (or lessons) you have to pass before you're qualified to start on a major? Take desperate for example. You know that feeling you get after you just graduated, you're sending out resumes like crazy, no one's calling back, the first student loan payment is coming due soon, and still...nothing. You're desperate for a job and you secretly vow to take the first thing that comes along. That's Desperation 1o1. You go through that and maybe you do end up taking that job, only to have it turn into a near miserable experience. Then you make another vow to never do that again. It's an experience that's helped shape you, and in some way, qualified you to move on because you passed the course, even if just barely. But a passing grade is a passing grade. And now you know that no matter how desperate you may feel, waiting for the right position is always the better way to go.

I think Stupid is one of those pre-reqs. We've all been there -- when you took back the boyfriend (or girlfriend) that cheated on you and humiliated you, only to later ask, "How could I have been so stupid?". Or, the time you let him borrow your credit card to rent a car, only to have him never call you again and return the car over a month later -- all charged to you. Then there's time you were stood up...on New Year's...and instead of calling it quits immediately, you accepted the lame excuse he gave, kept seeing him, and yes, he ended up doing it again, only this time he left you hanging on a trip to Santa Barbara that you freed up your entire weekend to attend. (Yes, this did actually happen to me!) In all of these cases (all real, by the way), you always look back in retrospect and ask the age-old question -- what the hell was I thinking?

But what if you needed that course to graduate? What if, on the transcript of life, you needed to have a passing grade in the 'Stupid' class? After all, it's only after you have these experiences that you're really able to keep them or anything like them, from happening again.

I like to think that life is full of prerequisites (like naive and immature, and maybe even reckless and irresponsible) that serve as building blocks for the majors in life -- like career, marriage, children, or caring for elderly parents. It's when we don't learn from those pre-reqs that we fail and end up dropping out before ever receiving a passing grade. And that's when you have to repeat the course.

So where are you in your degree? Are you well on your way to graduation or are you stuck in freshman seminar?