What if I told you that despite all our books, all our progress, and all our warnings, we still walk into the same walls? We say history repeats itself, but does it? Or is it us repeating ourselves? With new names, new flags, new tech. But the same old blind spots. We break things, then wonder how it happened. We rush it, then blame the map. And when it's over, we ask, why didn't they learn from the past? But that question, it's not just about leaders and wars. It's about you and me. Why do we keep choosing the wrong people? Why do we sabotage what's working? Why do we ignore the warning signs until it's too late? Hi, I'm Reza Sanjideh, and this is Philosophy of Life. I had a conversation today with one of my old friends, whose birthday it is, about our long shared history with the Iranian revolution of 1979. We both took part in it. pursuing what we believed at the time was the best path forward for our country. First of all, happy 64th birthday. You're a treasure of knowledge and historical references. And we did talk about how we should learn from past mistake and what went wrong. It's about what we're doing with it now. We'll look at how history misleads us, how it teaches us in riddles, not rules. and why learning from mistakes, both global and personal, isn't about being perfect. It's about making better mistakes next time. We like to believe we're smarter now, that we know better than the people who came before us. that if we had been there, in their shoes, we would have made the right call. But that is an illusion. Hindsight gives us clarity that the past never had. It edits out confusion, fear, ego, exhaustion, all the messy human things people face in real time. Take the 1953 coup in Iran. Mohammad Mossadegh, Iran's Prime Minister, was one of the most beloved political leaders in modern Iranian history. He nationalized the oil industry, he stood up to British imperial interests, and he believed, perhaps too idealistically, that the United States would support democracy in Iran. During the failed first coup attempt Mossadegh trusted the words of the American consul. He was told, If your supporters go home peacefully, the United States will not allow any coup to succeed. He believed them. His people left the streets. But only a few days later, the second coup succeeded. With the support of the CIA and British intelligence, The military overthrew him. And with that, Iran was sent backward. Not just a few years, but decades. The dream of democracy was crushed. The brilliant mind who stood beside Mossadegh, people like Dr. Hossein Fatemi and others, were imprisoned, tortured, or executed. Many Iranians still remember it not just as a tragedy, but as a betrayal. A moment where trust, misread intentions, and the failure to act decisively change everything. And yet, in the moment, the people involved believed they were doing their duty. They followed what they thought was right, even as the logic unraveled. This kind of mistake isn't just political. It's human. We do this in our own lives all the time. We act on unclear messages. We assume someone else will fix things. We trust the wrong people. We ignore our instincts. Or we're simply too proud to turn back once we've already committed. We say yes to jobs we shouldn't take. We stay in relationships that drain us. We launch ideas before they're ready because we're chasing speed instead of wisdom. And later we ask, what was I thinking? The truth is, you were thinking the way most of us do. imperfectly emotionally under pressure. Just like those generals. Just like the politicians. Just like Mossadegh. We want history to be a guidebook. But often it's just a mirror. It doesn't show us how to avoid mistakes. It shows us how deeply human we are. How we respond to power. pressure, pride, and uncertainty. And that's why learning from history is so hard. It doesn't hand us easy answers. It hand us difficult questions. The same ones we're still facing today. Just with different names, different governments, different stories. If history gives us so many warnings, why do we keep making the same mistakes? Let's take one powerful example, the 1979 Iranian revolution. After the 1953 coup removed Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, the Shah of Iran tightened his grip on power. At first, he was fragile. a king in the shadow of Western influence. But over time, his rule hardened. He eliminated political rivals, imprisoned opposition leaders, and created a brutal, intelligent force called Sabak that silenced dissent with fear and violence. Prime ministers were removed or killed. Opposition voices were jailed, exiled, or worse. And the people, hoping for reform, for dignity, for representation, waited. Years passed. Then, decades. Nearly 40 years of frustration, broken promises, and suppressed freedoms. But by the late 1970s, something began to shift. The Shah's grip began to loosen. His once iron-fisted rule grew hesitant, uncertain. For a brief moment, we felt real change was possible. There were whispers of freedom for workers, of independent universities, of a more open society, and maybe, just maybe, a true path to democracy. We saw a door opening, but then came the snowball. The revolution gained momentum, and it didn't care what it destroyed in its path. Our hopes, our reforms, Our dreams for peaceful evolution were swept away in the avalanche. The revolution came fast. And at first it looked like unity, like justice, like possibility. But underneath it all, many of us saw something darker. Religious fundamentalism was rising. Some warned of it. Many felt uneasy. But still, we pushed forward, hoping it wouldn't take hold. We told ourselves this time would be different, but we ignored our instincts. We ignored the signs. And once again, history turned, but not in the direction we hoped. The result? Another 40 years of oppression. A government that feared freedom. That silenced thought. That stifled innovation. That crushed dissent. And so many left. Some say... Over 6 million Iranians now live abroad, most of them educated, most of them once full of hope, now raising families and building lives far from the country they once fought to change. So, again, why do we repeat the same mistakes? Because we're not just rational beings. We carry emotion. We carry fear. We carry memory, even when we don't realize it. And most of all, we carry bias. Take confirmation bias. Our brain's tendency to seek out only what confirms what we already believe. Once we commit to a story, a leader, a cause, a movement, we stop listening to anything that challenges it. We protect the illusion. even when reality is breaking through. That's how bad ideas survive. That's how good people get trapped, not because they don't know better, but because they don't want to know better or take groupthink. The pressure to go along with the crowd, you've seen it in boardrooms, in parliaments, in revolutions. Even in a group of friends planning a trip no one really wants to take. Everyone senses something is wrong. But no one wants to be the one to say it. Sound familiar? It should. It happens in politics. In marriages. In movements. In regimes. We don't repeat mistakes because we're foolish. We repeat them because we're human. Because power clouds judgment. because fear demands action, because pride refuses to admit it was wrong. History is full of people who saw the disaster coming, but felt powerless to stop it. And it's full of people who believed they were on the right path until it was too late to turn around. And this doesn't just happen on the world stage. It happens in our personal lives too. You keep calling someone who's already shown you who they are. You keep investing in something that clearly isn't working. You keep hoping that if you just push a little harder, this time it'll work. We don't always repeat history because we forget it. Sometimes we repeat it because the emotional forces inside us are stronger than the facts in front of us. And sometimes we repeat it because we never truly faced it the first time. We've all heard the phrase, history repeats itself. But that's not exactly true. History doesn't repeat. It follows patterns. The names change. The technology advances. The borders shift. But the feelings, the power struggles, the fear, the pride, the tribal instincts, they keep showing up again and again. Take the fall of empires. Rome, the Ottomans, revolutionary France. They didn't collapse only from outside attacks. They decayed from within. Inequality grew. Corruption spread. The system stopped serving the people, and the people stopped believing in it. Now look around. Modern superpowers with bloated bureaucracies. Wealth gaps bigger than ever. Citizens losing trust in the institutions meant to protect them. It's not the same story, but it's familiar. Like watching a new movie with an old plot. Think about censorship. In ancient China, under the Qin dynasty, books were burned to erase inconvenient truths. In Nazi Germany, literature was destroyed to control culture and thought. And now, in today's authoritarian regimes, it's not fire. It's algorithms, filters, firewalls. It's not the same method. But the goal is exactly the same. Control the story. Silence the threat. Different tools, same outcome. Even in our personal lives, the pattern shows up. You date someone new who reminds you of someone old. You change careers, but carry the same fears. You move cities, but your insecurities come with you. You're not repeating your past, but the same emotion keeps showing up in different clothes. This is why learning from the past is so hard. because we expect the next threat to look exactly like the last one. But history doesn't work that way. It doesn't come back in uniform. It comes disguised. We look for the same mistakes, but they now speak in modern language. We expect the dictator to march in with military boots, not with a smile and a social media following. We expect the fraud to look like a villain, Not a CEO in a hoodie, so we miss it. Until it's already inside the house, the real danger isn't just forgetting the past. It's misreading the pattern, expecting a carbon copy instead of recognizing the emotional and psychological blueprint underneath it. If we want to avoid the same outcomes, we have to stop looking for identical signs. and start paying attention to what the behavior feels like, not just what it looks like. Take a look at the historical figures we admire. Einstein, Gandhi, Steve Jobs. None of them were strangers to failure. Albert Einstein faced rejection from universities and had many failed theories before discovering relativity. Mohandas Gandhi led with conviction, yet stumbled through difficult moments of political resistance and compromise. Steve Jobs was famously fired from the very company he created before returning to transform it and the world again. What did they all have in common? They didn't let failure define them. They learned from it. They adjusted and they kept going. It's not about avoiding mistakes. It's about how we respond to them. Let's break it down. Acknowledge the mistake. Be honest with yourself. Learn from it. What did it teach you? Adapt. What will you do differently next time? Move forward. Don't let it paralyze you. History doesn't give us perfect answers. It gives us insight into ourselves, our biases, our fears, our blind spots. The value of studying history isn't to say they should have known better. It's to ask, why did they think that was right at the time? And how do I avoid making a similar choice? The danger begins today. when we refuse to acknowledge our mistakes. As individuals or as a nation, history repeats itself not because the lessons aren't there, but because pride, fear, and ego keep us from facing them. So here's the challenge. How can we make better mistakes next time? What if the next time you stumble, you pause and ask, what's the deeper lesson here? What strength can I carry forward from this? What if, as a country, we said, we won't make the same mistake again, even if it means taking a hard, uncomfortable path? Learning from the past isn't about perfection. It's about recognizing patterns, emotional, political, cultural, and choosing a new response. It's about realizing that every mistake contains a seed. And if we face it honestly, we can plant something better. As Iranians, we now face a crossroads once again. History is knocking, just like it did 40 years ago. Back then, we misread the moment. We were divided, distrustful, hopeful, but unprepared. And external enemies exploited our confusion, setting us back another generation. Today we cannot afford that same error. We have two kinds of enemies. The external ones who seek to weaken us from the outside and the internal ones, our fears, our divisions, our old wounds. But here's the truth. The external enemy is the one that has always benefited when we turned on each other. They push us back. I said because we are weak. but because they fear what we could become if we finally stand together. Right now, there's something worth protecting. Our people, our potential, our innovation, especially in technology, which we've built through hardship, sacrifice, and genius. And yes, even if we have differences with the current system, we must not let those differences blind us to the bigger picture Iran cannot afford to collapse again. We must protect what we've built, not for government, but for the next generation, for the Iranian future. This isn't about loyalty to one political side. It's about loyalty to our cultural and intellectual survival. We must protect our infrastructure, our intellectual capital, our unity, as difficult and imperfect as it may be. So, what is the right decision? To me, it's crystal clear. We protect what we've built. We protect Iran. And we refuse to repeat the same mistake as we reflect on the past, both personal and global. Remember this. History may not always be kind, but we still get to choose what we do with its lessons. Will we learn from the past, or will we repeat it? That answer is still up to us. So, here we are. We've walked through the ruins of fallen empires, the silence of censored voices, the echo of personal regrets, and the storm of national crossroads. We've seen that history doesn't always repeat itself, but it leaves behind patterns, emotions, and consequence we carry, whether we want to or not. If there's one thing to remember, it's this. Awareness is the first step toward freedom. Because when you recognize the pattern, when you name the forces behind your choices, you begin to take your power back. You are no longer a passive character in a story written by fear, ego, or propaganda. You become the author again. On June 13th, 2025, Iran once again faces a dangerous moment, an external effort to destabilize our government, disrupt our unity, and push us back just as they did before. Many remember the coup of 28 Mordad, August 1953, when Prime Minister Mohamed Mossadegh was overthrown, but fewer recall what came just before. 25 Mordad, August 16, 1953. A failed first attempt at that very same coup. It nearly succeeded. And now, as we look at today's calendar, This new attempt in June 2025 falls dangerously close to 25 Mordad once again. That timing is no accident. It's not a coincidence. It's a signal. History is whispering, reminding us that this second attempt often comes quickly and quietly. That is the challenge we face today. And this time, we must be ready. This time, we must not let them succeed. They want to divide us, to weaken us, to steal another generation of progress and potential. But this time, we see it. This time, we are not blind. We've been here before, and we will not make the same mistake again. You don't need to be perfect. You don't need all the answers. You just need the courage to ask better questions, to choose more mindfully, to fall and rise in a new direction. We may not avoid every mistake, but we can stop making the same ones. We can stop ignoring the past, stop silencing our instincts, stop waiting for someone else to speak up, to fix it, to see it, because now you see it. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Philosophy of Life. Until next time, stay curious, stay awake, and never stop learning. And above all, try to make better mistakes.