The art of learning
Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash
Everything we know or we do we had to learn how to do it. I find this idea very consoling. Because we so easily forget it. In fact, we are surprised when we don't know how to do certain things and are even scared of learning new things!
But we cannot survive if we do not learn. Learning is essential for life. For starters, any change is the result of learning. We need to learn what to change, how to change, and importantly why. Learning never exhausts the mind in fact it feeds the mind, it keeps it hungry! When we make learning into an art form, then it really sounds promising.
Everything we do can be turned into an art, with that bit of extra attention, skill, or technique! Take the art of cooking for example, or the art of painting, gardening, writing, etc. Maybe some of you are budding Nigella Lawsons in the kitchen. In fact, maybe you already have all of these art forms! You just don't call them art forms but simply living!
But when we learn something, we acquire a new understanding or a new set of skills or values, or behaviour patterns. Just taking a number of steps ultimately leads us to a different stage in our learning of that very thing. It can be exciting! All the steps on the road to learning are crucial. These steps come at different times and in different ways. But how often we skip steps or take for granted the importance of each one and its value.
Where does failure come into learning?
Someone once said, "learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence".
Is embracing failure what that means? How to extract wisdom and learn from failure is the crucial growth spurt, the real learning curve. Adversity is a familiar experience to us. We only need to look at the Covid pandemic to see the impact of adversity on those around us.
J.K.Rowling the author of the famous Harry Potter series, and the U.K.’s bestselling woman author, gave an infamous address to Harvard graduates in 2008 about this very topic. Within seven years of graduating she experienced failure and adversity on what she described as ‘an epic scale.’
A lone parent, with no job, a broken marriage, and on the verge of homelessness; at this point, she began to experience for the first time a state of full freedom. She felt truly free because the one thing that she had feared most in her life had actually happened, failure with a capital F.
Freed of her fears, she picked herself up, and taking small steps moved forward in her life. In this state of complete ‘rock bottom’, Rowling began to fight back and reclaim her life. All she had were three simple things - a daughter whom she adored, an old typewriter, and a big idea.
The art of learning
Developing the ability to step away from what is safe and known and secure for us and take a risk, gives us the rich opportunity to learn something new. To feel the freedom Rowling knew.
But are we willing to accept those not-so-nice feelings that accompany being a bit lost, or feeling that bit insecure?
Am I humble and small enough to learn how to start all over again and adopt the freedom that comes with a beginner’s mind? To perhaps learn how to do things as a beginner?
Cultivating a more flexible approach towards things gives us an opportunity to move forward with a little more wisdom acquired in the process. And maybe a little compassion with ourselves and others. Because we don't need to get everything right, at least not first of anyway.
Making peace with our emotions
Life is full of random, unexpected events and demands. We need to learn how to understand better our reactions to these different intrusions in our life, and to see how to sustain and maybe regain a calm and balanced approach.
This probably involves taking time to understand my emotions - my own and other people’s – and to know how to channel them into higher levels of performance. We also need to learn the art of making peace with our emotions and those of other people around us. One thing that can help is to try and adopt a growth mindset from our experiences. To stay cool under fire and try and glean as much as we can from every experience. To develop resilience.
Conclusion
Let’s face it, we all know that a stiff and strained attitude to any form of upheaval -great or small - will simply paralyse any constructive efforts on our part to move forward. We need to learn how to keep our cool in moments of adversity and pressure. And this will free us up to make better, clearer judgements and take decisions that are more positive. It will also help us exercise more constructive actions in critical and challenging times.
Small, simple things can help enormously here. Finding time to create tiny havens for renewal in our day and our week. Making an effort to abandon those troubling emotions that come with failure and loss, and instead turning out towards others and offering a warm smile, or a joke or crumb of reassurance, or advice or whatever is needed.
