I learn something new every day – often many new things each day.
I reflect often on the type of leader I am today – after ten years with my company, and six years in my present position, compared to the leader I was in earlier years.
How different I am.
Richard Bach wrote in one of his great books – “I died to become the person I am today. Was it worth it?”…
As long as I am learning, it is…
As a former smoker I would congregate with other smokers, and this is one of the things I miss the most about not smoking. The places smokers congregate tend to be good places for conversation that bridges social and age differences because smoking cuts across all the denominators — young and old, male and female, professional and working class. All are represented in the ranks of smokers.
I remember a conversation I had on the “smoking deck” of a resort I go to. Smoking is prohibited everywhere but there. I was talking with a man in his early 20s. We were talking about nothing at all, just one of the heaviest subjects between young and old (I was in my early 40s at the time).
The question was, why do you, Dave, think you’re smarter than me?
Or put it another way — hey old dude — you don’t know shit. “;->”
Which, of course, is mostly what young people have to say to old people. (Or so it seems.)
So is it true, am I smarter than the young guy?
Now, of course, I don’t know the answer. I couldn’t unless there was some objective measure of smartness. So all I can do is have an opinion. But that doesn’t mean I can’t use the scientific method to form the opinion. So I asked my young friend some questions.
How old are you now? 22. Do you know more than when you were 18. Oh sure! No comparison, I was really stupid then. How about at 15? I was just a kid, I didn’t know anything. (I move in for the kill.)
Do you think learning stops at 22?
Answer: Of course it doesn’t. You learn things in your late 20s that you can’t imagine in your early 20s. And the early 30s have their lessons, as do the mid 30s and the late 30s (oh boy!) and then the early 40s. And some of the learning is pegged to other people’s experiences. Like when one of your parents dies. Or a child goes to college. Or things out of your control (bypass surgery).
Ask a really old person about this. One of the sweetest things about life is that you can always learn, right up to the moment you die. And that’s part of what’s most enjoyable about being human. For some reason, if we can find the pure learning, it’s a joyful thing, whether or not we ever get to use what we learn.
[Scripting News]