Saturday, September 14, 2013

Learning, creating, nurturing - The need for balance


Jack of all trades


















Youth is one phase during which we are constantly experimenting. Experimenting on everything, and with a lot of passion! Music, art, writing, travel, all of these feed our brains with various stimuli. We also experiment at other things – at running events, organizing charities, helping the poor, saving the planet, joining politics, being the change we wish to see!

In all the experimentation, the biggest driver is passion and the fun of doing something new. As time goes on, the mind kicks into action, analyzing again, which of these are important for us to retain in life consistently, and which need to be given up. After all, a person can only do so much. You need to prioritize.



Master of one?























At different stages, different things seem important to us, and we go in that flow. Later we find that the same level of passion is not retained in all things. In others, we find that the passion remains, but it requires long term commitment (which we may or may not be able to give). In yet others, we find that we do not have what it takes to go beyond a certain level of proficiency.



A year after college, I was still confused about what I wanted to do in life. I wanted to do ‘some masters’ - but I found the idea of doing an MBA equally intriguing as doing an MS. In short, I had no clue! I joined for a CAT preparation course, paying the full 12K out of my pocket, only to drop out after four classes! A few months later, when I applied for MS classes, my roommate made fun of me, “Let’s see how long you go for these classes”. I completed my MS successfully and with decent grades.




The need for balance

What may have started a wise advice from elders to show commitment to at least one main stream of work, has often ended as a warning against trying out new things!

“Concentrate on your work”
“You are too old to learn music”
“But what happened to your previous hobby?”
“Stick to one thing, man!”


Over time, I realize that consistency comes from being able to balance three things

  • Learning: These are things that constantly act as fodder for our brain and inspiration for our minds. These often get left out by adults and as a result, they find that they become stale with time. Learning is not just about learning in a career way. Learning is part of every single activity you take up! It includes career, housework, hobbies. Being a jack of all trades is part of this interesting journey!
  • Creating: It is not enough to learn. Our sense of worth comes from creating some value in this world. Something new, something with our signature on it. It could be something at work, it could be an entrepreneurial venture, it could be setting up new family norms, doing anything that you are good at and enjoy taking time out for.
  • Nurture: This is about giving back to society. It maybe your relationships with the people closest to you. It is about getting people to understand you. It is about bringing more people to the level of realization that you have reached.


If you spend all your time just ‘learning’, you very soon get disconnected with the world you are learning about!

If you spend all your time ‘creating’, you might very soon find yourself in an island with no friends, no beneficiaries.

If you spend all your time in ‘nurturing’ - which I would call social-service, you forget to ‘learn’ and ‘create’. This is a selfless act and can win you a lot of love and happiness, but generally, if it is not coupled with learning, very soon the capability of the person to nurture is also lost. The ‘creation’ activity is vital in giving experiential learning inputs too, besides giving the person a strong sense of self-worth.

7 comments:

Robin Hood said...

Very well understood and written. sala kisi technical blog jitna difficult tha mere liye itna deep samajh pana.. :P kidding
one question though, 'master of one?' me jo image use kiya hai uska main purposr likes badhana hai kya??? :P

Zeba said...

LOL Robin!!
Areh woh jedi master ka pic hai! Symbolism to show 'master' :P

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

Wow. Nice. I do not completely agree with the learning-creating-nurturing cycle you have mentioned but again those are my thoughts and learning from the world around. Thus I am not going into any arguements.This note of yours will remain as a beautiful document of your absorption from the world till date.Keep writing, you can share your growth as a person with us through your writing. It will be helpful for us to validate and re-validate our learnings. In a way, you are basically doing the nurturing thing you mentioned. - Tathagata Maiti

tat-tvam-asi said...

Zebs, :)

Nice blog. Just wanted to go one more level deeper :)
How would you define learning? Is learning going to college? or is it learning a trade or language? To me learning is just a matter of keeping an open mind. Once you start believing that you know all that needs to be known we close our minds to new knowledge. If we are ready to accept that we do not know, that we can make mistakes then we will keep learning.

Why Do we create something? Do we create it for name and fame or do we create it because we see a need for it or do we create something just because we like creating it. This is a choice a person needs to make. If you choose to create for name or fame you might not be happy if you do not get fame. And getting fame is not in our hands anyways. If you create when you see a need , there is a whole pandora box of questions as about who's need? And if you create because you like creating it you might at times end up creating things that are of no use at all. I do not want to say any of these three is superior, or that these three are the only reasons. Just wanted to poke out the questions we need to ask ourselves.

"Nurture", this was the part of the blog that I did not understand. You mentioned about three things here. Giving back to the society, relationship with the people close to you and getting people to understand you. I could not quite get the link between these three. Since I have not understood this part I will not comment on it :)

Hope I have understood the rest of the blog correctly.

Sai Prathima said...

Hey Zeba!
found the link to your blog accidentally!
I'm so glad i found it.
I can see experience writing here!
quite a good blog for youngsters like me to read through!
I am out of that confusion but it helps me understand the situation better!