What doesn't kill you…

Start with this essay “How to learn from your mistakes”. Scott Bekrun classifies mistakes into four categories and argues that learning from mistakes requires three things: putting yourself in situations where you can make interesting mistakes, having the self-confidence to admit to them and being courageous about making changes. A long but thoughtful discussion about how some mistakes can be life-changing.

Fortunate accidents

Then, let’s remember that human error brought us Post-It Notes, x-rays and popsicles. Read Top Ten Accidental Discoveries, and Oops! Lucky Me… for listings and stories behind some of history's luckiest discoveries. Who knew that forgetting to wash your hands and dealing with irate restaurant guests would have such an impact on today’s culture. Many of these inventors were able to reimagine their mistakes as advantageous, so next time you screw up, see if you can come up with some new kind of "lemonade."

For the good of humankind

Here, a collection of humanity’s regrettable moments are published at Only Human, “A community where people share stories publicly or anonymously about mistakes they’ve made in life and their advice to others.” Here you can learn from mistakes like “leaving bread on top of the refrigerator” and “pre-spending my tax return” and post your own missteps in hopes making the universe a better place.

(Speaking of spending, check out The Story of Stuff. This 20-minute video teaches us to rethink our purchases and shows us the how inexpensive products can actually cost us more in the long run.)

The little mistakes we make everyday

While we’re waiting to remedy the really big mistakes, we can also weed out the little ones under our noses with the help of this touring band of verbal vigilantes. Check out this NPR podcast about the Typo Eradication Advancement League – a team of four people who began touring the US earlier this month to repair public punctuation and grammar mistakes “by any means necessary.” You can also follow their three-month crusade on the TEAL blog. While you’re working on your spelling, improve your reading speed and comprehension, at the Reader's Edge.

For fun, check to see how "in tune with humanity" your word association score is at Human Brain Cloud. Your random thoughts might not be so incongruous after all. And, while we like to think of ourselves as being fairly complex, this seemingly low-tech "Responsive Face" facial expression animation demo is actually an experiment “to isolate the minimal number of facial expression elements that will produce a "convincing" impression of character and personality.”

Finally, check out these 18 wonderful tricks you can teach your body. Though we may be flawed, these could just be a few of many surprises about ourselves we have left to discover.