Life has some bits of fundamentals and the rest is filled with the lesson we learn in our daily lives. Arguably, we all fight for happiness in life. Without knowing what we need the most in life, we struggle every single day. There is a definite question that has an infinite solution, “Who do you want to become in life?” If I am the one who answers to that question, I choose a way to stay happy and find love in my life with nature. Exploring unlimited possibilities of cosmos and the wonder that it can bring to humanity. Now, what do you answer for the same question? Think about it and I am sure somewhere you will land on the answer that is hidden in yourself.
In our journey of finding answers we often land on different experiences. Through those experiences, we learn how to deal with those situations. Experiences we have always teach us something that helps you to move forward. In this article, I listed 3 techniques that help you to learn better in life. An extensive way of learning using each of those techniques will be explained in upcoming articles dedicated to each of them.
Here is the list of techniques that helps you to learn well in life. These techniques are not necessary to be sequential. These are independent of their own. You can use them to build your life above it.
1. Be Curious — Never stop being amazed for the things you don’t understand in life.
In Einstein’s “Old Man’s Advice to Youth: ‘Never Lose a Holy Curiosity.’” LIFE Magazine (2 May 1955), he said
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.”
It is obvious that life is full of mysteries. Even now we have a mystery on how our human body works and how it is created or who created. For example, we need food to survive and while eating food, we chew and make it as paste and we assimilate it. It goes to our stomach through the food pipe and in there HCL (Hydrochloric Acid) will be present and it helps for our digestion. Did you ever wonder, how it works and where HCL is produced from the food we eat and how it produces?
Do you know how the universe is created, how it all started? How do we fall when we jump from a building and we break our bones? Why not rain falls down and not up? What is up there beyond the blue sky and why shiny dots appear in the sky at night and not in the day? Why lions are the king of Jungle? Why boys look at girls and feel attracted most of the time? Why it pains a lot when you lose someone you love?
All these questions invoke curiosity in you, right? you think about these questions and think of answers. Most certainly there is no perfect answer to these questions but I am sure you can find some conclusive evidence from other theories. These theories are founded because of the curiosity our brain had. In the past century, we made a lot of progress in our civilization in the filed of Technology, Science, and Human Rights.
This morning I got to know a fact from the book called FACTFULNESS, which says in the last 200 years, the poverty rate in our world has decreased from 85% (The year 1800) to 9% (The year 2018). This is the significant growth that happened in the growth of humanity as a whole. Nevertheless, 80% of all the riches are consumed by 25% of the people in the world but still we are getting somewhere near to make this world a better place to live for our future generations. These kinds of facts blow up our heads and increase our curiosity to learn more about a topic.
In finding an answer on how to be curious, I was forced to understand people and myself. So I started to observe little things in my life even when I felt dizzy and worthless. One thing, I understand is, if you observe enough to know something genuinely, it will open your mind to the new level of thinking. That thinking will unleash the power to conquer curiosity. This how you find yourself to be curious in life. The only thing it demands is an open mind and a little bit of humor in it.
2. Unlearn and Stitch
In this step let’s see how we can use our skill of laziness to unlearn something that is not important and stitch necessary things in our life. Pick a concept in your mind and imagine you are a student of that subject and you are studying about it. Learning about the subject is a good thing it helps you to build your career over it but these days we are moving ahead in technology and inventing new things that we never heard of before. There was no concept of wireless 100 years ago until Nikola Tesla gave the idea of it. Now in 2020, we are communicating everywhere around the world with wireless technology. In the 1970s nobody had any idea about the Internet but now we use it as a freshwater. It plays a prominent role in our daily lives. In this ever-changing rapid transformational world, we should learn new inventions and how to use it. There is no value for obsolete data or skills.
In the corporate world, most of the recruiters don’t hire you if you are an expert in FORTRAN (Predecessor of C). On the other side if you know Python (Modern High-Level Programming Language) there is a higher probability that you get that job based on the job description. This means you need to cope up with the new change that this world is possessing. The good news is, there is a way for you to do that, we can call that as Unlearn what you don’t need and Stitch your previous experience of past to the skill that you newly learned.
To unlearn any skill, all you need to do is to concentrate on some parts of the old skill and take those parts and then compare it with a new skill that you are learning. It is similar to upgrade your Hard disk in the computer or the processor. If you want a new car, you sell your old car or you gift that car to your children. Learning new things is similar. You can also consider this as buying new clothes when it gets old. Likewise, technology is upgrading. I am giving an example of technology but even culture is also changing in this world. As we evolve, we need to unlearn a few things to adapt to the new change.
It is better to unlearn what you know like how old software versions are unsupported to get updates from the developed company, we need to let go of things but the main kernel or the root will always stay the same. New versions are just built on it. Similarly, you got to learn new skills on top of the old one not by forgetting it completely. This is what we can call as stitching.
So in this step, we discussed learning better by using the skill of unlearning and stitch. I will write an extensive description of each of those techniques in my upcoming writings.
3. Observe and Relate
We see things in life and often we judge them. As we look at that situation, a person or a thing, our mind starts to jump all over like a monkey. We get thoughts all over our mind and it is almost impossible to control our mind in that way as it will already be taken control of us. With the practice of observation, we can achieve the control and you know with the control like that, how much you can learn. Always be an observer of your own life rather than a judge. As Marcus Aurelius said in Meditations
“Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life”
There is no powerful learning that comes apart from observing yourself. Learning is not just what you do outside of yourself. It should start with you. When you observe your mind just the way as it is, it will reflect in what you see outside through your eyes. If you see good in you, only good things will be seen outside of you. Observation is an important part of learning something new in life. While learning, just observe for a moment what is it you are learning. Ask questions later.
Once you made an observation of that skill or the person, it is time for you to go deeper into it. This can be achieved by using a relation technique. This technique is often worked for me whenever I felt difficulty in learning new technologies like recently, launched AWS LightSail or Google’s TensorFlow Quantum. Relation technique is very easy to implement for example, if you want to understand how computer works, you can relate to the concept of how the brain works. They both are almost the same. Computer transfer data from wires/circuits to all attached parts of the system, brain transfers via nerves. For every concept you take, there will be a relation. You need to find the relation and attach it to that learning. Once you do that, learning will become easy.
Observe and relate is the technique of sheer creativity and it required practice to master it. This technique does not only hold good in learning about skills. It helps in life as well. It is like for every problem you face in life it helps you to come out of it. Whenever you encounter a problem in life, observe that problem without thinking anything about it. Don’t judge! — I know it is hard to control the mind but you should train your mind to observe. You need not control your mind, you just got to train it. If you don’t judge the problem, this means your problem is half solved. All you need to do now is, relate that problem to someone or something. I am sure there are thousands of people who face problems in life, take help them and take suggestions from them about what to do. Relate both your problems and you both will get the solutions from each other. Think this to the whole company, if an employee is facing any problem or he/she fall out with the company, that problem is not independent, it has to be the same with other employees as well. Contact them employees and relate the problem with the problems they are facing, discuss with them. You will find the answer. See, how this works if you don’t judge. Problems will end. So the prerequisite of Observe and Relate technique is Don’t Judge!
Conclusion
The above methods or you can call this as technique, are found as the result of my series of experiences. To learn more you need to sometimes, act like you don’t know anything. It is a hard technique to do that but to ease this, we can use an unlearn and stitch technique. When you are talking to a person or attending the meeting or the training but you already know the concept. When that person talks about things that you already knew, just ask yourself that is it right to lash on him or mock his face by telling directly, “I know this.” That is where observation comes into the picture. Your honest about that question would be wrong. So you need to act that you don’t know or you should consider yourself that there is something you can learn from that. This is an unlearning technique in use. Be like that person who is curious to learn, unlearn, and observe skills in life. These 3 techniques will never let you down if they are used for good effects. Let me end this article with the quote by Oscar Wilde,
“Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.”
Without love, you are ordinary but with love, your life will always be extraordinary even little things will get its fortune. So, love your friends, parents, sons, daughters, or literally everyone in the world because there is no one who knows lesser than you. I have never come across a person who knows any lesser. Everyone has their own knowledge to share with the world. Learn and Love are the 2 things that amaze every human.
Keep Reading and Never stop living your life
Credits: Thanks to Sushmita Shet
