Learn, unlearn and learn again

Over lunch recently, a friend made the following statement, “There comes a point in life when you need to learn, unlearn and re-learn certain things.”

Interesting, I thought. Consider this: my children operate technology with the ease and speed of a trapeze act. On my part, I’m all for universal remotes with the fewest buttons.

Sadly, television manufacturers do not seem to cater to the likes of me. Hence, every time I purchase a TV, I take eons trying to figure out what all the colourful buttons do.

“Why don’t they just put two buttons, one for volume and the other for changing channels!” I mutter to my bemused brood. “That would be boring, mum!” one of them ventures.

“Smart TV is meant to make your life easier and more exciting. You can surf the internet, watch two programmes at the same time and so on,” another offers. “Tell me then, can it also cook?” That is all I want to know.” They roll their eyes.

CONFUSING MANUAL
In the kitchen, most equipment come with a confusing array of buttons and instructions. So yes, just when I thought I was through with school, I’m still learning. Painfully and slowly, but it is an education, nonetheless.

And it doesn’t just end with technology either. There’s a lot of stuff nobody thought to teach us. Like how to parent in the different seasons of your child’s development.

You acquire one set of parenting skills when they are toddlers only to need another when they reach teen age. My mother taught me how to cook our food but through travel, I have fallen in love with different cuisines from diverse parts of the world.

To bring that experience home, I’ve had to learn new culinary skills while still preserving our food traditions.

BEHAVIOUR CHANGE

Perhaps the difficult part of my friend’s statement is the unlearning part because it requires that you delete some mental and behavioural files, reboot your perspective and replace old patterns.

There’s a Swahili saying, Jogoo la shamba haliwiki mjini, which translates into “The village rooster does not crow in the city”.

Maybe it’s because the city’s political correctness is intimidating. He may wonder, “What’s the right time to crow? Should I crow at all?”

Many of us still carry cultural and societal expectations that do not serve our current cause. From stereotypes about what men and women should or shouldn’t do, to harmful cultural practices.

To thrive in the new world, we will have to delete some of these files. On a more personal level, previous negative experiences could leave us with a corrupt operating system.

We see every relationship through the lens of the abusive one we just left. In this instance, we must “unlearn” this negative belief pattern to have any chance at a healthy relationship in future.

NEW SKILLS
I often feel tempted to make my children do things as I did them while growing. For instance, our parents were not emotionally expressive.

They did not tell us they loved us every day. Children did not look their parents in the eye when answering them. But times have changed, and with exposure to western values, today’s child demands more engagement from a parent.

Finally, there’s the stuff we need to relearn. Perhaps we forgot the things that used to work for us. Several months ago, I joined the choir. I hadn’t sung in one since my teens.

During the first practice session, surrounded by all those instruments, and lending my voice to group, it was all I could do not to cry. Why?

Because I had forgotten just how music once fed my soul. It had been pushed to the back burner with life’s demands but I realised, afresh, that I love to sing.

Some skills, like language, are “use it or lose it”. We may get too used to conversing in English as to become rusty in Kiswahili or our mother tongues. If it’s important to you, there are tools and institutions that can help you re-learn.

At whatever life stage you are in, you need to determine what to learn, unlearn and re-learn.