This week’s Escape Plan challenge (aka our Tip of the Week) is #17: Old Dog, New Tricks: Learn how to do something new today. Your time limit: 30 minutes.
At a speaking gig a few weeks ago, a woman in the audience came to our table afterwards and immediately joined Club K&J. In getting to know her better, we soon realized that she had come to the right place. She shared that not too lo
ng ago she signed up for a welding class. Her eyes widened with childlike excitement as she explained further. “Ya know, the sparks, machinery… it’s all kinda like working with fireworks!” (Quick background note: her day job is in service industry with elderly people.) She said she had always wanted to try welding, so she just signed herself up… why not?! One day she shared this news with her coworker and immediately the coworker belittled her and made her feel childish for wanting to try something new, like welding- just because. The coworker suggested, “You should’ve signed up for a class to learn something useful, like gardening.” Our newbie Club K&J member exclaimed, “I don’t even LIKE gardening! Why would I do that?”
What an example for all of us. You don’t always have to have a useful motive behind your curiosity and interests. If you want to work with sparks because you think it’d be fun, then go for it. Isn’t that such Adultitis-ridden thinking… that there must be a “practical purpose” behind every action.
What a bunch of uptight baloney.
When your spirit is allowed to learn new things, then you are open to growth, which is never a bad thing. Sometimes the very best thing you can do, to increase the effectiveness in your current goals, is to get out of your element and try something completely new. Our assimilating brains make connections in ways that we often can’t predict. Maybe the thrilling act of learning to weld will, in the end, help our new friend learn life lessons that will carry over into all of the other areas of her life…. or maybe she’ll just simply have fun. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
I double dog dare you to learn something new this week… something you WANT to learn, not something you should. Leave us a comment on the Escape Plan Blog to share what you learned in your 30 minutes.
Having discovered a community school that offers serious and recreational classes for adults near our workplace, I suggested to a co-worker that we sign up for something fun after work.
Browsing through the booklets and catalogue, I suggested that we try kickboxing, just for the heck of it. Hey, it was cheap too.
Her reaction was, “You gotta be kidding! We’re not kids anymore! We should do something more useful! Something we can maybe put on our CVs…help our careers….etc etc”
After some persuation, she reluctantly agreed. Needless to say, we didn’t join afterall. I went off somewhere else and signed up on my own and had a blast.
Dora,
Great hearing from you… thanks for sharing this story!
Your co-workers’s line, “We’re not kids anymore! We should do something more useful!” … is so telling. She may be dealing with a serious case of Adultitis.
It sounds like you, on the other hand, are kickboxing your way to an Adultitis-free lifestyle. WOO HOO!! Music to my ears!
The simple fact that you wanted to try kickboxing and did it, even though your co-worker copped out on you, is so very cool. Good for you!!!