MISTAKES

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. — George Bernard Shaw

 It is hard to determine who made the most mistakes on LOST. Every character made their mistakes, some of which had lethal consequences. Then there was point where the background characters who had nothing to do decided to get involved in the action (i.e. the Doc Artz dynamite proposition.)

There was a core set of characters whose lives were basically spent doing nothing productive.

Locke dabbled from job to job, but he really wasn't good at anything. He would have moped through life but for the 815 plane crash.

Kate would not have accomplished anything in her life because it was her nature to be constantly on the run from authority.

Sawyer would have accomplished nothing legal as he was set in his criminal persona to allow him to change.

Hurley, with or without his lottery winnings, would have become a house hermit and he would have not personally accomplished anything.

Charlie led the rock star "one hit wonder" lifestyle, but that sole accomplishment (a footnote in musical history, a trivial trivia questions) meant that he would have accomplished nothing significant as a solo artist.

Claire made a big mistake getting involved with a man who ran off once he knew his was a father, leaving her to be an unwed mother with little apparent work skills to support a child on her own.

Then there was those who made mistakes in order to gain accomplishments in their lives.

Jin made the mistake of marrying Sun because that bond put him into the sleazy debt of his father-in-law in the quasi-criminal world of the family business.

Likewise, Sun made a mistake in marrying Jin as a means of rebelling against her dominant father by bringing home a poor door man. She compounded her mistake by having an affair which would have brought shame on the family name.

I think Jack also made a big mistake in trying to follow in his father's footsteps. I don't know if Jack was happy being a surgeon. He may have been better off playing his music as a free spirit than going to medical school. There was never going to be a recognition by his father of Jack's career accomplishments because Christian had already surpassed his son at every level. What lies in the shadow of a dominant father figure? A cowering child.

All of the above characters had personal regrets prior to boarding Flight 815. What had they completed in their lives? They had achieved some levels of success to none at all. 

Only a few of the characters actually accomplished their goals when surviving the plane crash: leaving the island. Only Kate, Claire, and Sawyer actually made it into the Ajira plane to leave the island. Locke left the island, but in his mission to get back to the island he made the mistake of trusting Ben, which led to his demise. (On the TV series, we only see Hurley next in the sideways world - - - which we now know is when he had already died. We don't know for sure if Hurley ever left the island.) The rest made new mistakes which cost them their chance of rescue.

Jack made the fatal mistake of becoming the island guardian. Sayid made the mistake of coming back to life then trying to be a martyr on the submarine (which cost the lives of Jin and Sun). Charlie made a similar mistake in drowning in the underwater station.

Maybe there was a Darwinian undercurrent through the series. The best and brightest may have a chance of survival, but in reality it is still random chance. If one makes mistakes, it may increase the odds of a bad result.