Art-of-Learning

How do we learn?

Answer is simple. We learn from our mistakes.

We may conclude- “All is well that ends well” or even before it “ends well”, we start introspecting. Questions like, “Where did I went wrong? What could have been done differently?”.

But the moral of the story is not generally so straight forward. We do not conclude that these were the reasons of our success. Rather we learn – these were the reasons which were stopping me from being successful.

Many would agree the idea of success is a controversial one.

Some say success is achieving your goals and living your dreams. Others may argue, taking the non-convention path and making your own unique story takes you to success.

Regardless of which path we take, it is rare that success comes along easy. People say that do what you love and then dots will connect automatically. People tend to over-believe in whole concept of “connecting the dots”. You create your own fate and its your hard-work which will pay you back, not some super-natural force.

Even Steve jobs himself, who supposedly coined this phrase of ‘connecting the dots’, he did not leave the university, but instead stayed there as a drop-out and worked hard. Its his efforts which fetched him the success and in turn “connected the dots”.

Unlike the courses and syllabus we learn in high school, learning from real life experiences is not that difficult. We have no pressure to mug up instances as to what to do when, it comes naturally, instinctively. Like “C” comes after “B”. If we face a situation once again, we’ll know ‘what not to do’ and most of the times that will pay off.

So maybe, we can start taking risks – calculated risks. Take up a new job, make a new investment, pick up a new hobby, start stopping by at different supermarket or buy a different brand of a product. At the max what can happen – we will be wrong. So at least we’ll know this was wrong. We won’t regret that we never tried it.

Imagine what would be today’s world if Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg had not dropped their normal course of life and taken up this one. They took a risk, they must have made mistakes, but they never hesitated in burning the night oil, they never hesitated in changing themselves whenever required and most importantly, they had a dream on which they never gave up.

History is full of instances, where people made mistakes, but rolled up their sleeves and learnt from them.

It’s time we do too.