Lessons of Unlearning
Author: Yashaswi J
As I grew up I learnt things mainly from 2 scenarios. One from the teacher. My teacher was my mom, my dad, my younger sister, my friends and all those people I interacted till now. It is said that we meet 80,000 people on an average in our lifetime. Every talk I had till date with the people was a learning for me. In school, I was taught with certain principles which are laid out to improve the society and also for improving individual skillset. We had moral science as a subject where it was explained how to behave with people, what is honesty, truth, faithfulness, humble, respectful etc. All these good lessons was not sufficient at all to improve my character or even my behavior. Only by seeing or by hearing I learnt many other things which were not supposed to be learnt.
I learnt how to scold someone with abusive words.
I learnt how to hate someone when that person doesn’t react to my feelings
I learnt how to walk on the streets as If I am the lord on this planet
I learnt how to hit someone whenever I couldn’t control my anger
I learnt how to cheat someone whenever I wanted something else.
I learnt how to disobey rules of traffic and drive in any way I like
I learnt how to ignore people who were suffering and seeking help
I learnt how to act like genius even though I didn’t knew anything
I learnt how to feel happy by hurting someone
I learnt how to hide my negatives just because I was feeling inferior
I kept on learning all bad things which made me feel that I am the greatest of all
All these were the teachings from the same people who did go to school and they too knew that these were not good behaviors, even though it was displayed in front of their children and with their friends.
Learning was very easy as I had unlimited live examples and developed those unwanted skills.
Now, when I take my children for a walk I see how they learn from others. From us. From elders. This is the second phase of learning in life which is very tough. It was time to unlearn all the above things which I listed. I promised myself that “I will TRY or AVOID such behaviors as much as possible”.
After few days, I also learnt that TRYing or AVOIDing will not help me in unlearning those things. I understood that unlearning is not as easy as learning. No schools, friends, families thought how to unlearn things. I cultivated unlearning things from my experience of failures. It was tough but wasn’t impossible. Now, for the Good of future generation (I being selfish here — for my children), I had to let go all my behaviors which are not good.
I learnt how to convince someone without using abusive words
I learnt how to love someone even though if that person doesn’t react to my feelings
I learnt how to walk on streets as If I am also a small part of this society
I learnt how not to react when I try to control anger
I learnt how to work hard to get something I wanted
I learnt how to obey rules of traffic and drive in the way which is safe for everyone
I learnt how to notice and help people who were suffering and seeking help
I learnt how to improve knowledge by saying “I don’t know anything and would like to learn more”
I learnt how to surrender my negatives and cultivate positives
I learnt how to get love and happiness, by sharing love and happiness
Today, I learn everything which is good and also which is good for others. There are many such situations which are created in life for us to adopt good and to let go bad. Instead, of getting humiliated by doing bad things let’s do good things and set ourselves free in the world of LOVE.
Originally published at https://www.bimbacreations.in on December 23, 2020.
