Experts aren't always the best teachers, perseverance over intensity

Experts aren't always the best teachers

While experts are typically selected as teachers for the next generation, in matters other than education, they may be the worst people to learn from. C.S. Lewis said, "The fellow pupil can help more than the master because he knows less. The difficulty we want him to explain is one he has recently met." An example of this in practice is that someone trying to learn coding may be better supported by someone who has just landed their first coding job than by someone who has been coding for 30-40 years. For the longer-serving colleague, coding has become an integral part of their life and another fluent language they can switch to at a moment's notice. In contrast, the recently employed colleague would be able to show the novice the next steps, using recent learnings to help draw lines from current knowledge.

Next time you'd like to learn something new, you can find someone who has recently passed through the stage you're looking to complete. They may be able to help mentor you through this stage in a more helpful, understanding and relatable way than an expert in your field.

Perseverance over intensity

If there is one thing that almost all successful people have in common, it's their ability to persevere through struggles. Time spent doing a thing is the best predictor of success. Intensity is excellent and can be necessary in certain moments. Still, where many people will dive into something intensely, with goals and aspirations, many will fall by the wayside as their motivation dips or when the rewards don't follow their actions in the short term. A longer, more concerted effort would be far better if "success" were the only barometer.

Adler's view of the past

The psychologist Alfred Adler believed that the past was didn't matter at all for the way you should live your life in the present and future. He thought that to blame your current behaviour on the past was to conform to determinism and accept that your present and future are both set in stone based on what has happened to you in the past.

While I disagree with the absolute nature of his claim, I think we should take account of how often and to what extent we blame our past experiences for our actions on a daily basis. Of course there will be influences; it is well documented that our past experiences affect our mood and reactions to stimuli in the present but by the nature of free will we have a full spectrum of actions that can taken at any moment, irrelevant of our thoughts and feelings just ahead of the action.