What is the last thing you learned?
The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice.
Brian Herbert.
And I choose. Every single day. To learn. To grow. To improve. My life has been a precovid-postcovid kind of differentiation, and pre-covid my focus was on new experiences, which also led to learning, but may not have the requisite certifications for it. Post covid however, saw me procure certifications to add value to the lessons I was learning. Covid also pushed a lot of work online and in a short span of two years, the online canvas morphed into a genie that grants all wishes. For me, it pushed into perspective the importance of keeping abreast of the changes. It started with Digital Marketing and social media and then continued with story brands and extended to product marketing through CXL, when I joined the workforce, which strangely did not pan out the way I expected it to and continues with Copywriting through The Copy School. This was followed by UI/UX design principles and has been interspersed with self learning- designs and mandalas in my zen tangles.
The last four years has been filled a lot of professional lessons than I care to list out. Find that listing here. And every lesson has been a reiteration of the quote. The ability to be able to learn is a gift and you always have the choice to accept the gift. These gifts are the bounties of our world, it helps us evolve and evolution ensures that we push extinction just that bit further away.
Every time I lift the pen, to tangle, I face a blank canvas. The designs I create are spontaneous. I have never been able to create a rough draft and then make it a final copy. Sometimes, I also find that I don’t like the bloopers that come in the middle. There have been times when I have abandoned work midway, because I did not like the direction it was headed towards. Today, I’ve learnt to stick to it and complete the course, slowly and patiently, because you can never predict how something is going to end based on how it started or how it looked midway. And this is true for life as well. I’ve stopped trying to predict what the result is even before I start. I start and work through it every torturous step of the way, and sometimes perseverance pays. Sometimes, it just does not work out. But it’s made me a little more patient. A little more understanding. A little more empathetic. And these are skills I would not trade.
Social media has become a huge learning platform. Influencers are the new teachers. What started as a creative outlet for slapstick comedy and foolish dares, now also hosts tons of relevant information. I wouldn’t advice you to just follow the information on your for you page blindly, on the contrary, I will ask you to verify it using any acceptable search engine and even specialists before you believe what you have accessed. However, all I request is that you keep an open mind because learning happens best when you are amenable to it.
Last evening, in what I thought was a general conversation over dinner I learnt that the kids are aware of tons of stuff and the best way to identify this is to be humble enough to zip your lips after you broach a topic. The discussions are often hilarious and sometimes pragmatic, but oftentimes I am the sole beneficiary of a new topic to catch up on the following day. Booktok– is actually a thing, where readers promote a particular genre or book to their friends. The reason I don’t use terms like influencers and followers is because this works even with normal folks discussing a favourite genre, author or book. It takes off from TikTok and I had absolutely no clue that such a thing existed. (Do a search on Insta and you will see lots of references). Pays to sit silent and not preach on your dinner table. (This takes a lot of effort from me, because I love the sound of my own voice, saying it out loud is the best way I learn). Let me reassure you, it’s the next generation that’s going to rule the world, and they are going at it at a rapid pace. If we intend to catch up, patience and silence are going to be the best ways to boost the leap.
Just a little more 