Something To Learn

There’s always something to learn from anyone.

Travelling half the world, from the south-east of Asia to this west side of Europe, I have learned a lot of new things. It have made me humble as I realize that over the years, all my knowledge and understanding are limited to a certain geographic limitation or cultural setting. For example in the UK, although using metrics in a lot of things, uses miles for distance. So whenever I read something about the length of a railway line, it would take me a few seconds to compute into kilometers, and then imagine it by comparing to other railway systems that I am familiar with.

This doesn’t limit to work situation only. In fact it is mostly in my personal life that I learn a lot of new things, from people that I do not expect from. Not because they don’t appear smart or whatnot, but because mostly the situation or place where we learn about something, is not where we mostly expect it to be. For example I learned about the word ‘poorly’ from a neighbour, which meant being sick, or ill. Of course she didn’t spelled it out right (neither figuratively nor literally), but she said she couldn’t attend an event due to being ‘poorly’ and having to rest. From the context I understood though, and formed an understanding of the word.

There are also a few times where a stranger explains or talked either directly to me, or to his/her friends, and I overheard, that I understand about the systems and how things work in the UK. I can’t give a clear example unfortunately, but mostly happened during my first year being here, where I was grappling about.

Then there are also the case where people show their bad side or act rudely, that we might be angry and condemn them (and in most situation, we should rightly do so), but in those situations too, there are things to learn. If nothing else, we can learn NOT to do the same mistake. We are humans after all.

As I have children, I hope that the last example would not be me and my children. Instead I hope I can become their anchor for choosing the right things during good or difficult time.

Thank you for reading.