Stop Sharing So Much What You Learn
There are so many things to learn in life and they all seem so different. You can learn a language, public speaking, how to fix a car, how to play an instrument, etc.
We consider all those to be different but the process in itself is the same no matter what we wish to learn. We start with no knowledge of the task, then proceed to learn the basics, start getting a handle on it, realize how far we are from really knowing the thing we try to learn, we end up on a “plateau” where we don’t see any improvement and finally we reach a level where using the skill is rather natural.
Another thing to take into account is how we feel about the learning itself.
I have been learning languages for so many years that despite the fact that I wanted to talk about languages all the time ten years ago, I now don’t feel the need to. I sometimes even struggle to talk about it because I feel like I have covered the topic over and over again. Yet, I am aware that there are still some many more aspects I could talk about.
Back then, when I would start talking about languages, I would always get the same look from the other person saying: “Oh, there he goes again.”. I was (and still am in some regards) seen as “the language man”. I would meet someone for the first time and they’d tell me: “Oh, you’re the guy who speaks too many languages right?”
For years, I thought that this would stick to me forever and I made my peace with this being my main characteristic.
Yet, when I started self-improvement last year and then my blog, I started talking about those around me and, after a while, sometimes saw that same look in the eyes of my interlocutor.
A friend of mine started working out a lot since the end of last year and he now often talks about it.
So this made me think about it more. It made me realize that no matter what you learn, our society has made us want to share it with others. Being in love with something can be contagious and we are well aware of it.
For this reason, we want to see the people we appreciate start liking the same thing. I think this mindset could be seen as the below:
If we like each other, that means that we have some things in common. So why not add one more thing?
While this reasoning doesn’t appear to be flawed, the problem behind it is that the reasons behind us liking the same things rarely comes from the same origin.
Our experiences have shaped us in a certain sort and while some parts may cross paths with some other people, this doesn’t mean that you can manufacture a new interest into someone else willingly.
Obviously, sharing is not a bad thing in itself, but the tendency of sharing too much (notably pushed by Instagram, Facebook and the sorts), has made us too “spread out”. We share and share and share. The likes come in, the people we know well may ask us a bit about but most of the time, it’ll end up being forgotten soon enough.
For this reason, enjoy what you learn and do, but do not push it onto others. You can share or push. The choice is yours, but remember and be ready to see that pushing, hoping for someone to like the same new things will certainly not happen. In such a case, be careful not to have too high expectations. If the people around you don’t have the same new hobby or liking, you surely will find some later by accident.
