Why do we stop learning as soon as we jump out of school, college and university? That’s one of the main reasons people feel stuck or trapped in their middle ages because doesn’t matter how hard we fail as children and young ones, the older we grow the more the fear of failure engulfs us.
The expert in anything was once a beginner
helen hayes
What is Learning?
From our birth, till we end up old and fragile, what most of us don’t realize is that there is one thing that continuously accompanies us: learning. Whether voluntarily or involuntarily, a human being never ceases to learn in any phase of his life. The famous novelist Paolo Coelho in his award-winning novel, ”The Alchemist” argues that we are born pure. Our faculties of thinking, emotions are not influenced by the outside world. And with this pure nature when we first come into this world, we accomplish one of the most difficult cognitive tasks: learn to speak. Although when a child starts to speak it is considered one of the easiest and simplest accomplishments, science has proven that learning a language is one of the most complex processes a human brain can encounter. Yet we complete it in seemingly rather easily. Why? Because we are not afraid to fail. There is little to no fear of the notion that what other people will think. A child’s actions and thoughts are free from the influence of the outside world. The same is the case with learning to walk. You might have noticed that the infant which is least afraid of falling when trying to walk is the one who learns to do so earlier than the others.
As we grow old our thought process is clouded by judgment or fear of judgment from others. Our learning abilities are limited by our anxiety of failure. And this is when we stop learning we stop evolving and start looking towards the outside world for solutions to our problems. Humans have developed a perpetual need to follow a symbol that can guide them, tell those comforting stories about their problems who is not afraid of creating solutions and telling people that his new formula or latest strategy will get them out of any shackle be it economic, emotional or physical.
Keep Trying!
Let’s take a step back from what we have discussed. We all know about the motivational speakers, the high achievers and the brilliant few who have defied the norms of society and emerged triumphed. What is common in almost all of their stories? Failure. But these people didn’t care about what people will say if they tried the same thing one more time which made them the laughing stock. Or try another method to reach the same goal for which they were ridiculed by their peers. After failing numerous times and mastering the art of ignoring the surrounding world these people evolved by learning. Remember our infant, which was not afraid to fall and kept on trying to walk, trying another step, trying to speak words no matter how fumbled and funny they sounded. In these samples, there is a lesson. There is no road leading towards mastery which doesn’t pass through mountains of failure.
Now reflect upon ourselves. We the average, the abundant in numbers have lost our way, our path to success just because why have fallen prey to the standards of civilization. We are so afraid of failure that we consider anyone who is not afraid of failure as a superhuman. When in fact, what all these superheroes did was to carry out the ability to rise after falling which all of us had in common at the beginning of our lives.
Without Failure There is No Learning
The horror of disappointment has led us to so far away from our desired path that it has changed our way of thinking. We perceive reality differently because we think differently. The vice of stereotyping has put the nail in the coffin. Stereotyping is not just degrading someone because of outwardly reasons but also holding someone in high standards when they aren’t deserving. What does this mean? Asking for relationship advice from someone very famous assuming their success in sports, acting, etc. is a confirmation stamp for the panacea of anyone’s life. We are so dumbfounded in someone’s ability to be persistent in the face of struggle that we consider them an embodiment or torchbearers of triumph. We forget that we all share the same ability only ours is shadowed by the fear of judgment. Now I don’t have anything against any of the icons of feat, what my point is simply that we came in this world with the same clean slate (although genetically unique) and each one of us had to take the unique learning curve.