Learning by doing
Of course, you can learn things from books. The words of a new language for instance. About the special places in a yet unknown country. Formulas with which you can calculate the result of a complicated matter. But I wonder, do you really understand it?
By reading words and storing them inside your head, did you really get to the point? Did you really understand what’s it all about?
Any fool can know. The point is to understand ~ Albert Einstein
Don’t get me wrong, the knowledge from books is useful. But to me it’s only groundwork. To really understand something and to utilize it, is possible by doing.
Isn’t it true that to speak a language well, you just need to do it? By engaging in a conversation with somebody and by stumbling and searching for the right words you suddenly find you understand one another? By listening to the other person, you hear how to associate words and to use them in full sentences.
When you start traveling in that unknown country to experience how it is to be there. Maybe you get lost from time to time. And you ask the locals for direction, ending up on a beautiful spot, not mentioned in your guidebook so you would have never discovered it on your own.
By applying a formula and getting a different (or no) result. By trying again, and again and again… Then starting to change bits and pieces. To find out that this formula can be used in another way.
Sometimes you fall down, because there is something down there that you are supposed to find ~ unknown
My point is, it’s ok to stumble. To get lost and ask for direction. To make a mistake and start over. Or just do things differently. It’s how we learn, by doing. In our daily life, in relationships with others, at school and in our work.
Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all ~ Aristotle
It is how we learn to see from a different perspective. It’s how we learn to improvise and to search for answers. It’s how we learn that (fortunately) we’re not perfect neither do we have to be. It’s how we learn to be humble. To laugh at ourselves. To find our courage and start over. It is how we learn to look at ourselves with compassion.
You will learn by doing, but you will understand with love ~ Shams Tabrizi
Yeah, you are allowed to stumble, to get lost, to be yourself and to do things differently. Just like our children may learn by falling down and getting up again. Just like everyone else.
We can read so many books and quote wise words from other people, but we can only truly understand if the words resonate with our own heart. If we have looked at ourselves and our experiences with love and compassion. And furthermore, if a next time we stand on the other side of the story and watch somebody else struggle with the same situation. If at that moment we can keep an open mind and see with love, then we truly understand.
Copyright picture: chalk drawing by Soon
