We are given ample opportunities to “learn lessons” that are handed to us, often on silver platters through educators, work and recreational experiences, by reading and yes, even online sites that offer reality.
As we sift through our lives, even some of the youngest “practitioners of life” can look back at real-life experiences that taught them a lesson they’ll probably never forget unless or until Alzheimer's or some other affliction cashes out the memory bank.
Sometimes the lesson you are being taught may not immediately resonate with you, but over time, it may come roaring back to lend assistance to something you are attempting to do in real time.
It may be something as simple as facts and figures you took in years ago that you can now use to forge an argument or come up with an answer to a probing question that you haven’t had to encounter for several years or maybe even ever.
As we learn these lessons of life, we would be well served if we also learned when and how to ask questions of those who know stuff. If you ask the right questions, you might get a good reply, and maybe together you find solutions. After all, some problems and projects are best approached by teams, not solo performances.
Sometimes disagreements can actually lead to friendships and solutions. In the political world, they call it bi-partisan practices. Those moments can be most satisfying because it’s at that point where dignity and even kindness can find some room.
In the political world recently, we have seen more made-for-TV tantrums than actual reach out for assistance and bi-partisan supports because ego too often gets in the way of progress.
When we build alliances, whether it is in business, politics or educational edifices, things have a tendency to get done. Clarity certainly supersedes erratic behaviours. Lying loses you allies while truth and stability can save projects, programs, and yes, even lives, when applied with reason and the aforementioned kindness. We don’t need some “alternative facts” as one well-known politician once described it. We just need the real facts laid out so we can absorb, learn, rinse and repeat so we won’t forget the lesson.
Of course, some of our most important lessons are learned early in our lives, such as how to eat, walk, go potty and tying shoelaces and making beds. Hey, we all gotta learn that kind of stuff, eh? We learn how to talk and laugh and cry, although the laughing and crying, I believe, just come naturally from the inner self. We don’t have to be taught how to be sad or happy, that’s a built-in element for most, as is pain, for sure, both physical and emotional.
But hey, I stopped well short of gaining my psychiatry degree. In fact, I didn’t even learn how to spell that word until I was 18. So count me well short of certification on that front.
We learn how to wash a car, bunt a baseball, shoot a puck, dance a polka, vacuum a floor, tie those shoelaces (hello Velcro, my old friend), sing and learn lyrics to songs, hold a fork and knife properly, or chopsticks.
In other words, we can learn the fundamentals by simply observing, or by watching others perform duties, such as cooking and sewing and sorting, which they can do with ease, while we, as youngsters, had to learn how to do, sometimes the hard way.
Later on, we discover what paths we are going to follow professionally. For some, it’s easy; for others, it becomes a perplexing problem. Maybe they have no discernible skill set, or perhaps, too many, and they have difficulty choosing. Sometimes a career can be sorted out as a natural route because a parent, relative or close friend has led you toward that path. Personally speaking, I wasn’t one of those, although I did call upon a few of my mother’s skill sets in photography that she had taught me, to land my first job in the world of reportage and journalism. I knew how to develop and print pictures. Easy peasy for me, “back in the day.”
I landed a junior reporter’s job that involved rising at 5:30 every a.m., to make my way to the office/darkroom developing tanks to develop and then enlarge and print the photos we were going to use that day. Hey, it provided me with $40 per week and a ton of new friends and co-workers, and I never felt a need to explore other avenues.
No downloading pix in those days. I learned how to listen, question, record and report, and I already knew how to write, but I had to learn how to “write good, eh?” So lessons I thought I had forgotten in Grade 7 to 12 English and literature and social studies classes came roaring back into the mindset. Oh yes, nouns, conjugations, idioms for idiots. There was always more to learn, but I was able to benefit by mingling with professional reporters and editors who knew what they were doing, and I was able to absorb, through osmosis, most of the trade requirements.
But that’s just one personal example.
Many learn by doing. Most farmers I have known have learned vital things via classrooms, but mostly they’ve arrived at success by just doing it, and learning as they went along by listening to other agricultural experts, Mother Nature and their own spirit world and instincts - another wonderful tool.
Nurses, doctors, sales personnel, teachers, miners, riggers, et al, don’t get there by accident - they get there by learning. The trick is to keep on learning, no matter what age or profession you’re at. In fact, just last week, a friend, an engineer neighbour, taught me a neat little trick I can use in my not-so-expert pursuits in my garage. And it didn’t cost me a thing, other than a more solidly framed friend and a reliable neighbour. It’s funny how those things turn out. Sometimes lessons just arrive, unannounced, unexpected, but greatly appreciated.
