Some people do, indeed, go too far too fast.
I wrote a whole thing about it. Probably several things, because it's something I feel pretty strongly about.
But some people don't. Some people are capable of gauging their experience and abilities and growing into their capabilities.
I went too far too fast. There was no way I didn't. I learned that, though. As I made some dumb mistakes, as I grew as a diver, as I saw the oversights in my education and started to fill in those discrepancies. It was weird recognizing, knowing that I'd gone too far too fast.
There's a story about someone else going too far too fast circulating now.
It's wrong.
Sometimes stories are told about how you, personally, would never make a mistake that people all over the internet would talk about for a while. That you're beyond reproach. That you've never made and could never make a mistake.
That is fucking stupid.
You can make a mistake.
You will make mistakes in your life. Many, many times.
I hope your mistakes don't kill you. But they might. At this level of diving, mistakes can be... well... not great...
But what's too far? What's too fast? Is there actually some sort of speedometer? Is there some way of recognizing just how fast is too fast and arresting people before they make the mistake that everyone will later be able to agree was the obviously worst one ever?
Yeah. Good luck with that.
I knew a guy who didn't make a lot of mistakes. He was well-trained to separate from the world where mistakes are made and the world where objective truth is followed. He was not a "mistakey" fellow.
I've listened to a LOT of divers (and dive professionals) talking about how they would have NEVER made the same mistakes as XXXXXX diver.
... when we all have. We have all started as XXXXXX diver. We were terrible. We were barely capable of smiling for a picture.
According to some other diver, we're still XXXXXX diver. We still suck. Never going to get better.
Not any one of us.
Unless you're a PADI Course Director.
They're obviously badasses beyond reproach.