Chapter 352

Alain de Botton once wrote, “Anyone who isn’t embarrassed by who they were twelve months ago isn’t learning enough.”

I think most of us are both rarely embarrassed and consequently not learning enough. As my learning curve continues to climb as I continue to age, I can say that my humility has grown with time. There is so little that I know, and so much that I don’t. This is reinforced over and over in my 50’s. Yet too often, I just want to choose something just because I want to, rather than because I know what I am doing. But I am learning so much and I have discovered that it is easier to learn under certain circumstances, than under other circumstances.

Too often as I am working with my dad and have too much to learn, it becomes a contest of wills, rather than a learning experience. It usually happens when he is not the undisputed expertise in an area we are working on. If we are working on an engine, I do not object to anything he tells me because he is da bomb. And he is eager to tell me the whys, the hows, and some of his experiences in the past concerning that engine or process. It’s when he is only good at something, that it becomes a contest of wills. I ask my usual questions and he gets defensive, which generally leads to me asking more questions, which leads to a less than conducive atmosphere for learning. Does he know more than me, probably. Does he know everything, nope. Unfortunately, I need to be more humble because he still knows more than me and I could learn something valuable if I would let myself not care about who is right. I do get very tired of the whole victim/hero thing going on with him.

But I should be embarrassed by how little I know and learn from the master.