“Learn from others what to pursue and what to avoid, and let your teachers be the lives of others” (Dionysius Cato).
IT’S A SIMPLE THING, BUT IT’S HARD TO ADOPT: THE WILLINGNESS TO BE INSTRUCTED. If any instruction needs to take place, it’s more satisfying to our pride to be the instructor rather than the instructee. Most of us would agree that straightening out someone else is more comfortable than being straightened out ourselves!
But if we back away from being instructed, we cut ourselves off from most of the learnings that make our lives useful and enjoyable. “Learn from others what to pursue and what to avoid,” Dionysius Cato said, and his advice is full of insight. When others try to share with us the wisdom they’ve learned from the mistakes they’ve made, common sense says we ought to be “instructable.” We need to learn from the mistakes of others because, as the old saying goes, we won’t live nearly long enough to make them all ourselves.
However, there are certainly times when our own experience can be a powerful teacher, and on such occasions we need to be just as open to our own “instruction” as we are when someone else is teaching. That’s especially true when our experience is the painful kind. Benjamin Franklin knew what he was talking about when he said, “Those things that hurt, instruct.” Yet we often ignore pain’s lessons and have to repeat our schooling even more painfully later on.
If someone pointed out how many times a day we’re in the position of either instructing or being instructed, we’d probably be surprised. The fact is, much of life consists of these two interactions. So, the more we can learn about what makes a good instructor and a good instructee, the more advantage we give ourselves in life.
When was the last time you willingly let yourself be instructed? If the honest answer is that it has been a long time, you may be older than you realize — or you may simply have let your mind grow old before its time. Like it or not, “instructability” (or the lack of it) is a prime indicator of how much life we’ve got left in us!
“Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all” (Thomas S. Szasz).
Gary Henry – WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
