Pride vs Self Confidence Part 1: Pride (or the time I almost electrocuted myself and in the process made a $30 lamp cost $235)

The Dalai Lama says: "Self confidence is not to be confused with pride. Pride is thinking highly of oneself without good reason. Self confidence is knowing that one has the ability to do something properly and being determined not to give up."

About a year ago, I bought a $30 lamp from IKEA to hang over our kitchen table. It was a pendulum style lamp that hangs from a hook in the ceiling and then has a cord that you plug into a switched outlet.  It has a fancy made up Nordic name, like ILLUMO with those little dots over the "U" and a cross through the "O."  Anyhow, the switched outlet that I was to plug the lamp into was kind of old and grimy, so I thought that I would replace that as well. Found one that seemed to fit the bill for another $5.  Now, I am in no way an electrician. I have done some basic plumbing repairs with success, and thought - it's like plumbing, but with wires. I own an outlet current detector and know enough to switch off the circuit breaker prior to doing such work and I can follow directions like - secure the green wire with the copper screw according to the diagram - and thought, with nothing to back it up, that yeah,  I can do that. I placed my outlet current detector into the outlet and it lit up. I went to the circuit breaker and started flipping the switches until the light went out. I thought I was good to go.  I pried the ancient faceplate off of the switch and got down to the business of unscrewing it from the wall. Oddly, there were like twice as many wires as I was expecting. None of them had any of the colors I was expecting. There was only black and white and the copper ground wire. Based on the placement of the screws of the old vs the new switch, I tried to figure out how to "map" one to the other. When I thought I had it, I went to unscrew the wires. When I did, I got a bit of a jolt and dropped my screwdriver. Another circuit breaker tripped. Found out one electrician and $200 later that:
1. The wiring was old, hence the lack of predictable colors (but was at least in good shape)
2. There were actually two circuits running to this outlet, which was a bit unusual
3. I didn't know what the heck I was doing and could have gotten myself killed because I didn't want to call someone over to do a job that I thought I could do, with nothing back it up.
Thankfully, there was no serious harm done and I learned an important lesson about pride.