NormsMilfordBlog

“We learn something from everyone who passes through our lives…Some lessons are painful, some painless…but all are priceless.”  (Unknown)

We all learn in many ways. Some like to read; while some like to just go out and experience things and learn from those experiences. We also all meet people who pass through our lives and most of the time we learn from them, if we are paying attention. Sometimes we learn because they have something to share and pass on to us – an experience or bit of knowledge that they’ve picked up on their life journey. Maybe their shared experiences will help us avoid a mistake or help in our efforts to accomplish the same thing.

Sometimes the learning comes from how we react to the people that we meet and trying to figure out why. Are we drawn to them by their charm or repulsed by them because of their appearance? Do we agree with their opinions or do they offend us? Do we find the experiences that they may relate to us to be helpful or do we write them off as the blathering of an idiot? What can we learn about ourselves by looking at our reaction to them? Has a little bit of prejudice shown itself in our reactions? Have our preconceived notions been exposed? Did we wait to render judgement or jump to a conclusion that we may now regret, based solely on the appearance of the other person? What can we learn from that?

Life is full of opportunities to learn and doesn’t seem to follow a lesson plan. Things and people just happen in our lives and each occurrence represents a learning experience, if we let it. I think the key to turning life into a continuous learning experience is to be more cognizant of what’s going on around us and to embrace everything as a possible teaching moment. It is all too easy to “tune out” life around you these days. It is easier to keep your head down with your eyes focused upon the tiny screen of your phone that it is to see the big, wide world around you and all of the opportunities that are there. You should really give life a chance. It is a much more fascinating experience than the text messages and games on your phone.

So, start each day with the expectation and the anticipation that you’ll learn something new from someone today. Then, commit to make the effort to meet and interact with others in your search for that new knowledge. At the end of the day, think back on the encounters that you had with others during the day and all of the things that you learned. Those are lessons that would have been lost, had you not made the effort. If you have time, you can review the things that those people may have learned from you and reflect on whether what you learned today has changed your outlook on things. Maybe what you learned during the day helped knock another tiny edge off those prejudices that you had at the start of the day and that’s a priceless lesson.

Have a great and educational week ahead. I can’t wait to learn from you.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2015 at 11:58 am and is filed under Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.