By Linda van der Kwast
Of course, you can learn things from books (the words of a new language for instance).
You can learn about the special places in a yet unknown country and formulas with which you can calculate the result of a complicated matter. But I wonder, do you really understand it? By reading words and storing them inside your head, did you really get to the point?
Did you really understand what’s it all about?
Don’t get me wrong, the knowledge from books is useful. But to me it’s only groundwork. The way toward real understanding is by doing.
Isn’t it true that to speak a language well, you just need to do it? By engaging in a conversation with somebody and by stumbling and searching for the right words you suddenly find you understand one another? By listening to the other person, you hear how to associate words and to use them in full sentences.
When you start traveling in that unknown country you truly experience how it is to be there? Maybe you get lost from time to time, and you ask the locals for direction, ending up in a beautiful spot that wasn’t mentioned in your guidebook so you would have never discovered it on your own.
It is by applying a formula and getting a different (or no) result or by trying again, and again and again, then starting to change bits and pieces that you find out that this formula can be used in another way.
Sometimes you fall down, because there is something down there that you are supposed to find ~ unknown
My point is, it’s okay to stumble. To get lost and ask for direction. To make a mistake and start over, or just do things differently. It’s how we learn (by doing) in our daily life, in relationships with others, at school and in our work.
It is how we learn to see from a different perspective. It’s how we learn to improvise and to search for answers. It’s how we learn that (fortunately) we’re not perfect, neither do we have to be. It’s how we learn to be humble. To laugh at ourselves. To find our courage and start over. It is how we learn to look at ourselves with compassion.
You will learn by doing, but you will understand with love ~ Shams Tabrizi
Yes, you are allowed to stumble, to get lost, to be yourself and to do things differently. Just like our children may learn by falling down and getting up again. Just like everyone else you’ll ever meet in your life.
We can read so many books and quote so many wise words from other people, but we can only truly understand if the words resonate with our own heart and if we have looked at ourselves and our experiences with love and compassion.
We can understand when we’ve forgiven ourselves for taking a wrong turn.
Furthermore, the next time we stand on the other side of the story and watch somebody else struggle with the same situation, and at that moment we can keep an open mind and see with love, then we truly understand.
Originally published at Rebelle Society.
Linda van der Kwast is a writer, a storyteller and a soon-to-be aura reader. She loves to explore what it is that moves people, and she has no fear of diving deep into a human soul to find that out. She likes to shed a light on things to guide people find their way back. It inspired her to start her website, believing that every person can be free to express herself who she is. At times she mistakes the sea to be her home, and you’ll find her at the beach, far horizons filling her eye, wondering what’s out there. Closer to home, you can meet her at Facebook or Twitter with a cup of tea and chocolate, balancing between expressing herself in Dutch and English.
Photo: (source)
Editor: Dana Gornall
Comments
- Go Forth & Love Deeply. - September 16, 2016
- Yes, I Do Miss You (But I Wish I Didn’t). - September 5, 2016
- Love Thy Neighbor, Love Thyself—Unapologetically. - August 29, 2016
