What I’m Looking For
Many people spend a lifetime looking for something they rarely find. Sadly, I include myself in that list.
The good news for me is I know what I want but am having trouble finding it. Others I encounter have the burden of not knowing what they are looking for, compounded by not finding it.
Maybe you can help me. Here’s what I’m looking for:
People who are not done learning.
I’m sure they exist because a few times in each millennium of my life I’ve found a couple of them. They’re like the 1943 copper penny – rare.
It’s easy to spot what I’m not looking for because all I have to do is look back on periods of my life and use myself as a model. I was done learning. You couldn’t teach me anything. To say I was snidely arrogant about what I knew would have been understating the obvious.
When you’re caught in that loop of godlike superiority, it’s hard to recognize that anyone has anything worthwhile to offer you. This state of mind is equally alive and well in people who are hugely successful as it is in those who are abject failures. It’s not pretty or useful in either case.
Physicians of all stripes and managers of most companies lead the pack. There must be something they put in the water that retards their capacity to learn. They have it all figured out and this poor wretched mess in front of them has nothing to teach them. The folly in that mindset is that every patient, every employee and every customer presents an opportunity for new learning.
Who knows more about the effects of lightning on the body, the person who’s been struck on the golf course or the person who has studied about it in class? If you said the person who studied it, you must be a doctor.
Most doctors that I’ve met treat people who have suffered certain maladies for 20 years or more with the same formula they learned in class. It never occurs to them that the person with the disease process may know more about it than they do, because they have lived it. This failure to learn from their patients keeps the patient hurting and the doctor stuck in knowing what he or she knows. It prevents exploration into learning something new together.
When I learned that I wasn’t done learning, new vistas opened up that I would have never seen had I stayed locked in my learning. It’s an awful trap to be in because you don’t know you’re trapped. You’re too busy knowing everything that you miss seeing what you don’t know. Paraphrasing The Grasshopper: “If you’re knowing, you’re not growing.”
You stunt your growth when you know, and you are not anywhere close to reaching your innate potential when you have it all figured out.
So, if you run into someone who’s not done learning, hold on to that relationship and cherish it because it will foster new learning in both of you.
As for me, I’m optimistic that these people exist and I will continue looking. I’ll let you know how well I make out.
All the best,
John
http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan
http://www.cafepress.com/grasshoppernote/3580301
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