The perennial student
As I was grappling with the new contraption I ordered online the other day, my 7 year old daughter stopped by and wanted to lend a hand. She insisted that she knows what she was doing and that she has experience with Legos and can piece the puzzle together. Being a parent that I am, I was irritated and then warded off her help. She made a disappointing face and left me alone. I got a glimpse of her expression and it dawned on me that I had a similar expression when I was teaching my father on the operation of the new smart phone. Inspite of my protestations that the new technology can be used to do cool things like facetime, share pictures, etc., he is still behind on how to use it.
It made me wonder, at what point in our life we decide to stop learning and fall into the comfort zone of our ignorance. We all want to teach and coach others, but do we really continue our learning process? In our world, we have put great value for experience, but we forget that it is not absolute and the world around us does not remain the same. There is a joy in learning new things, we all experienced it when we were kids, somewhere along the line we lost that habit. We infact, even make fun of the kids and their way of thinking. Yes, they are pampered with their new smartphones, modern digital knick knacks, but attributing such faults to the generation is in my view kind of hypocritical. After all, we also faced the same kind of derision about our TV watching habits by our own adults.
I for myself, made a decision that I would want to listen more, learn more and perhaps I would be able to contribute more in a positive way than simply waiting on the sideline and complaining about the new generation.
With a perspective, a father who strives to be a perennial student.
PS: Yes, I did invite my 7 yr. old later on to help me and she did have the knack to piece out the puzzle in front of us, while I supplied the muscle.