I have always wondered as to why people are forgetful. Some are forgetful from childhood and others like me have become forgetful as I grew older. Some creative people are considered forgetful. I am not sure as to what makes people forgetful.

My spouse has been forgetful for quite some years now. So, this defies the logic that forgetfulness is linked to one growing older. I have seen my college professor being very forgetful. He was a genius but not very creative. So the link between creativity and forgetfulness is also not always established.

My grandson who is ten years old is very creative but not at all forgetful. So all our theories on “forgetfulness” has to be forgotten. We need to believe that anyone and everyone can be forgetful and nothing wrong being so.

I wonder why we are forgetful. Some of us genuinely forget while some others fake forgetfulness. Either way forgetfulness embarrasses us more than anything else. We forget to brush our teeth before our morning coffee. We may forget our bath before going to work or forget our breakfast before leaving home.

We may forget to drop our kids to school and put our family in distress. We may forget to keep our timelines at work or commitments to other stakeholders. Every way we learn from these incidents every day. However, some of us learn and change while others continue to forget the same way.

Many of us may remember that we forgot to do our home work in school. Most of us would have faked this excuse to our teachers and would have gotten away a few times. But life does teach us that that the more we fake to others the more we betray ourselves.

We can expect from others what we deliver. If we forget on our commitments to family, friends, suppliers or customers, we may realise sooner than later that they may do the same to us in return. Every thing which goes around, comes around in life.

All of us may have used the “forgetfulness” card at home, school or the work place some time or the other. It is fine to try those pranks and learn from it. However, if we make this prank a habit, we tend to lose more than others in our lives.

I personally feel that there is nothing wrong in being forgetful as long as we don’t fake it. It is human to forget things and there are many ways to remind us as to why we forget things in life.

The earlier we realise this basic tenet of life, the easier life becomes for us. If we don’t we can continue to be knowingly forgetful and be ready for others in our lives to be as forgetful as us or even more.

Let us remember not to deliberately forget from today and if we do, we lose in life more than others. If we forget unknowingly, it is human and anyone will forgive us for that.

Let us forget to forget, knowingly from today.

S Ramesh Shankar

As humans, we possibly start learning when we are born and it may be ending only when we die. At least we are not aware as to what happens to us post our death. Every stage of life teaches us new lessons every day. It is upto us to learn from every experience and every person we meet in our lives

If we walk through every stage of our life, we realise how much we learn. As a child, every action of ours is a new learning. Starting from learning to crawl, walk and run, we have so many opportunities to learn every day.

We learn from everyone around us. Our parents, siblings, friends and neighbours teach us new things every day. We crawl, walk, fall down and get up again to run ahead in our lives. We cherish every moment and are grateful for the people who enable us to learn every day.

As we grow into an adolescent, we tend to learn what we want to. We ignore things which does not interest us. We also rebel when we are forced to learn things against our wishes. We have a world view of ourselves and believe there can be no alternative view.

As an adult we tend to become more rational. We learn by our own choice. We categorise things based on our mindset. We decide what we want to learn and what we don’t want to. This I would call as “Selective learning”. All the curiosity of our childhood gradually fades into selective interest and learning. In this way, we lose many opportunities to learn from experiences and people around us.

One good example is learning when we travel around the world. While we want to learn all the things which we possibly need not, we ignore things, which we should learn. We learn to accumulate things more than we need in our day to day lives but we ignore the self discipline which we see on the roads or even in everyday life.

We learn to be self centred in our lives but we fail to learn to give back to society. It is important to realise that every experience of life is an opportunity to learn. Every person we meet and interact with can teach us something if we are inclined to learn from them.

Out of our own ignorance or ego, we decide what we want to learn and what we do not want to. This leads to selective learning. A side effect is that we lose multiple opportunities to learn and grow in life. It may be worthwhile to challenge ourselves and ask why this happens.

One of my best experiences in learning is my travel around India and the world as in the photo above.

I believe it is never too late to learn in life. I was recently reading an octogenarian lady attending computer classes since she wanted to email her grand children and chat with them online. I also have read of grand parents pursuing research or post graduate degrees when they do not need to at their age. This proves learning ends only in our mind and not with our age.

Lets us learn to learn unconditionally from everything and every person around us all the time.

S Ramesh Shankar

9th November 2020

 

Today in most situations formal education does not prepare a kid for a career. It only enables the award of a degree and certificate. While we may say that the current education system possibly lays a theoretical foundation, it lacks in application. Further, it assesses the ability of kids to memorise and reproduce and not apply their intelligence to solve a problem.

What do we need to do to change the system ? In my view, education should prepare kids to assess themselves and realise their full potential. As a kid, I should be clear what my strengths are and what my passion is ? We should take children to places where they can live their passion. Imagine a creative child working in an organisation like a BPO where the job is process driven and not much scope for innovation. On the other hand, imagine an analytical child trying to innovate and create new designs in an advertising agency. Both the kids are likely to be unhappy and may not be fully equipped to do their jobs.

Our system conditions the child to believe that some careers are more prestigious than others. The inequity in salary and wages also makes children force themselves to take up high paying jobs although they may not be enjoying it. Similarly, the environment also does not encourage entrepreneurship. It is generally believed that smarter people take up certain kind of jobs only.

All these fallacies in our system makes us believe that it is time to reset our education system. Starting from schooling we need to delink education to our ability to memorise things and reproduce. It should be more vocational after an objective assessment of the child’s potential. Some kids are analytical, some creative, some love sports and others dramatics. We need to create a system which enables each child to make a self assessment on what they are good at and what type of work will give them joy.

My experience teaches me that we need to enjoy what we do in life. If we enjoy what we do, we give our best and live our passion in life. Otherwise, it becomes a ritual and adds to stress and agony in life. It does not matter if we are playing a sport or teaching in a college. We need to do what brings out the best in us. We need to experience joy in doing it and add value to ourselves and society at large.

At primary level, kids should not be in a competitive environment like today. They should be free to play and learn and understand what they enjoy doing more. This will take them to their area of strength. At the mid school level , it should help them self assess and then decide on which area they would like to study. At senior school and college level, it could be a right blend of theory and practical application in the field of their choice. This should be supplemented by compulsory internship as part of the curriculum to test their application skills.

All the above steps will prepare a child to go where they want to go. No destination is final. If a child realises that they have made a mistake on the way, our systems should be flexible enough to for them to choose an alternate path. This way we can ensure that children find their passion in life always.

As in the photo above, a child is not the most educated when young but could be more intelligent and creative and can trouble shoot many issues if they enjoy doing what they do.

Organisations needs to support internship for children so that they can assess themselves and make them industry ready. This could include businesses who can prepare kids interested in starting their own ventures and improve their risk appetite.

After all education is the foundation for a better tomorrow.

The journey has to begin today.

S Ramesh Shankar

2nd June 2020