It is said that experience
is the best teacher, but to learn consciously through wisdom may even
be a better and more convenient way...hence the latest saying
“Example is the best teacher.” Really, I wont make the decision
for you, I'll rather dabble round the two sayings and leave the ball
in your court to decide.
To learn by experience is to
learn by mistakes but to learn by example is to learn from the doings
of others. For me, I ask myself, why do I have to make the mistake or
fall a victim of the circumstance before I learn my lesson, when
someone, somewhere, somehow has actually gone through the same
predicament and hence could be an example for me to learn from? I
believe having to experience the pain and agony can be a tough,
costly and inconvenient way to learn. We can easily learn by going
out of our way to acquire knowledge and wisdom rather than leave our
learning to chance.
Let's paint a scenario, I
believe we all at one point or the other attended a Mathematics or
Quantitative Analysis class, when a new topic is to be introduced,
what does the instructor start with, Examples or Experience? No
instructor takes a student through the experience without an example.
So eventually, when you go through the experience, you come out
triumphant. I therefore think our crave in every situation of life
should be example and not experience. There is nothing new under the
sun, this tells us that there is nothing we are presently going
through or about to go through that doesn't have an example which we
can take a cue from. Surely, we can learn from mistakes, but why wait
till when we make mistakes before we learn? My opinion, we should
give more premium to learning by wisdom than by experience.
To do this, i.e. learn by
example, one will have to make up ones mind to be decisive in
learning. We must decide to learn consciously and not necessarily
from negative experiences. In the football world, when a fixture
pitches you against an unfamiliar opponent, what do managers do? They
travel down to watch them play (learning by example) or pick up a
tape (recorded match), thereby learning their moves and operations
before going into the match proper. Someone actually said certain
things wont be effectively learnt until you experience it, I doubt
that though.
There is a common
saying...”Fool me once, shame on you...Fool me twice, shame on
me!”. This shows that having experienced it myself, nothing of such
can ever pull me down again. However true this is...is left for your
imagination. Life is simply the outcome and outplay of our decisions,
and our future will therefore be determined by the decisions of
today.
Life, as you know is
measured in time. I therefore ask the question, do you want to spend
your lifetime making mistakes before learning or just live by
examples and move on gallantly across phases? As you know, life
(time) waits for no man, while you are busy making mistakes and
perhaps truly learning, some others are scaling heights simply by
riding on the shoulders of those that have gone ahead.
Have you ever seen a mad
man enter into fire? Even a mad man knows fire and never enters into
it...simply because by example (not necessarily experience), he knows
the outcome of a fire burn.
Conclusively on my part,
it is much easier and cheaper to learn consciously by wisdom than to
learn by experience. Learning by experience, the deed is done and we
are just picking p the pieces – learning in regret how to avoid
such predicament next time.
Take a stand on your
choice...Mr Experience or Mr Example. I look forward to hearing your
mind on the subject matter...perhaps your perspective might shed more
light on the discussion.
