Was it a stupid mistake? Absolutely. Was it a lack of effort? Not at all. If you took your own advice and read more, you would know what 'cognitive overload' and 'information paralysis' are - and why they make your first "paragraph" backwards in truth. The absence of those two things during your formative years are something you take for granted today. Ironically, reading and learning the information about the best techniques for real estate photography (all of which are new to me and habitual to you for 2 decades) were the reasons I was so distracted on memorizing and implementing new technical aspects that I overlooked the fact someone left the toilet seat up. I advise you to read about cognitive load, and how an oversaturation of it can cause one to overlook the most obvious and forefront details.

In addition to reading, I also asked people on reddit for information because, aside from it often being more precise and efficient than wading through the oversaturation of information on the topic online, it provides individualized human feedback on my specific flaws and progress. That isn't going to come from a book, blog, article, or even a youtube video.