Why do I get the sense we’re being guided into autopilot? That interest in self-exploration leading to personal elevation seems coerced into fast-tracked progression – that’s a mouthful. It’s almost like the world isn’t interested in the process of learning to retain the information, instead getting to the desired result however we can.
There’s a lot wrong with this ideology, namely, the disappearance of incremental wisdom that allows flexibility for adjustments. If we’re always just trying to get from A to B, we become comfortable in missing the steps of understanding and how to build on that for improvement.
I used to hear this saying all the time, “gets me from A to B” – a once self-appointed excuse for being ashamed of one’s car not being expensive and making others jealous. Getting from A to B is the point of a car isn’t it? Whether in the most beat up of cars or expensive, the arrival point doesn’t change. The experience does, but there’s still a destination.
Being EFFICIENT over effective
I get it, our obsession with time efficiency has lured us into thinking the same about our lives. We basically operate in hyper speed, darting from A to B as quickly as we can, trying to fit in the next A to B experience. Life has been scheduled around speed, and we prioritise what is efficient now instead of long term gains.
You can’t comprehend what can’t be considered. It’s like reading a book and sometimes getting to the end of the page, or chapter, and thinking, shit… I can’t remember anything I just read. A big cause of this is distraction, you’re too preoccupied with reaching the end, missing all the information in the middle… or the book sucks. Either or, your experience isn’t the intention of the action. The idea of A to B can explain this, as reading requires patience, and a lot of us don’t have the inclination to indulge in such a thing.
Enhancing knowledge, skill sets, and experiences is part of life and one’s contribution to self and society… however, with the accessibility factor of practically everything jacking up our consumption like a bodybuilder on steroids, now a certain level of knowledge or experience has been converted into acceptance… as long as the task is getting done, does it matter whether the result could be better?
A REALITY WE ALL EXPERIENCE
I’ll put my hand up. There are things I just don’t have the patience to learn… and in this modern age of search to scroll to find to action, gratefully, I’ve found myself fixing all kinds of things. A lot of the time it’s great. I’ve got an electric drill and a Youtuber showing me how to fix stuff that’s saving me a fortune. Could I do most of the tasks again without having to revisit the Youtuber? I want to say yes, but really, it’s no, because I haven’t retained the knowledge being imparted. I’ve just watched and replicated the action to get the desired result. And for some of the more big-ticket items I still roll up my sleeves and whip out the phone to find the solution. The result, we needed a new washer. Falling for the self-reassurance that you can always come back to Youtuber, places a reliance on something that isn’t tangible. So then what?
I don’t see A to B going away anytime soon. But what I do hope is it doesn’t takeover our society so much that the struggle of learning to comprehend is replaced with autopilot. You might be executing the skill, but if the internet went down tomorrow, would you remember how to do anything you’ve actioned? We don’t want society to forget the importance of staying committed when the learning gets challenging. You’ll learn a lot more if you stick with it, along with a self-confidence that drives a certain type of happiness because you’ve achieved the goal.
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