I learn incredibly fast and I'm a lot smarter than everyone else around me. The secret is I screw up a lot, right in the beginning. I do things to see what'll break, sometimes even things I know are going to end badly. At work sometimes they give me a new project to start a new initiative on new technology or new products, and I'll make something horrible but workable really quick, and then tear it apart and start over from scratch. The second one around is perfect: it encompasses all the knowledge I gained the first time around to avoid pitfalls and mess and organize things properly, plus all the minor adjustments I make during a proper implementation.

You ever see people who are just completely lost, all the time? Everything in the world overwhelms them, and unless they're running the same exact cheese-maze every day they're completely bewildered? Those are the people that are afraid to try stuff and see what happens. That's why they're dumb.

If the tool is blunt, it won't work the first time you try to use it. So sharpen it. Now it works. If you just stare at a blunt tool all day, it'll stay blunt, and you won't get any work done. Don't whine to me that nobody showed you how to sharpen something; look it up, and the first 30 times you'll just make it blunter but eh, been there.

For bonus points, though, watch other people drop tools and derail grinding wheels and all, and don't do that. B)