There are a few different ways to learn in life. Sometimes it is experience based, other times you learn from others, and of course there is the book-based learning as well. And each method has its place and applicability. The issue with learning, sometimes, though, is that you have mental models that inhibit your ability to learn - or to state it slightly differently you need to find ways to allow the preferred learning model to work and this requires that you first take the obstacles out of the way. Ah but maybe, it is not so easy to get the obstacle out of the way. Maybe we really don’t want to. Could it be that we leave obstacles in the way because they are a safety net for us? With an obstacle there you have “good” reason not to pursue a different approach. And thus you have avoided potential failure, you have plausible deniability, and all is good, right?
Well, not exactly; seems to me that THPL would prefer to acknowledge any potential conflict and would then contemplate a scenario that suggests a way around, over or through it. THPL wants to learn more (and I might add feeds off of learning). So you have to get more active and engaged and not accept the status quo. So the goal then, is to take it up a level – restated, the goal is to train yourself to develop alternative pathways for learning. These pathways are ones where your mind has refused to accept the inherent conflict (or obstacle) – and you work the conflict/obstacle to the point where you know there is an alternative to how you think or approach the challenge. Once you have reached this point the only step left is to embrace the conflict, work around it and then move forward. Great rewards come at this moment because you have achieved the original objective but more than anything you learned how to learn in a world of conflict and challenge. This is a skill that few have and everyone needs. So, I suggest that you actively think about how to embrace the idea of “earning to overcome” and you work to identify it and then work around it. Make it a goal to be better at it in 2013 and THPL will be that much richer for it.
Back in Boston – love it here – Sally made the trip from Scranton to DC to Boston – she does know how to travel. And so the 3:26 is in the books +25 seconds tonight, with 234 on the song of 4:17. Progress across the board.
Loving life even though it still feels like winter in Boston
Ciao
Joe