Learning Curve and Back to Basics 

    A few years ago, when one of my friends and I were talking, we talked about the time we thought we were omniscient and no one could compete with us. I told him I felt that way for the first few years after my undergraduate school. At that time, I thought I knew everything. After working for five years, I realized I had much to learn. Fast forward to today, I know that my knowledge is like a dust particle if knowledge were the size of the universe. When that epiphany happens, you ask; it happens over time. The older you get and as you go through life, the easier it gets to acknowledge that you do not know everything. But I grew up in this bubble where my biggest insecurity was telling people I did not know something. I felt people might look down upon me if I said I did not know something. Learning was and still is associated with bookish knowledge and good grades. Knowledge pertains to academic excellence. It is deeply rooted in our conditioning to get good grades to earn a living and not to pursue real learning. I devoted a lot of time in life to that kind of knowledge and excellence.

Recently, it has dawned upon me that knowledge and learning are not one-dimensional. It is multi-dimensional. They are something that will ease as well as enrich your life. Metrics and numbers in your report card have nothing to do with learning. When I was a kid, I learned about the water cycle, and in one of the stages, water evaporates and turns into water vapor. So that was my knowledge. My learning was when I started making roti, I used to make brittle roti that was hard to chew, and I could not figure out why. So I had to think, and after much hit and trial, I had this Eureka moment where I figured out that I had to add extra water to the dough to make it softer. When I put raw roti in the heated pan, the water content will change into vapor and make roti puff, and when it cools down, the vapor condenses and turns into water, making roti soft. I also had to think about relative humidity, which I learned in geography class. Denver has low moisture, so I had to factor in that variable to make roti and other baking products. Recently, my mother started to go to school to learn English. I knew that level of English when I was in middle school. On the other hand, now I am learning people and life skills my mother mastered about two decades ago. Hence, learning has no sequence or direction. People are in different phases of learning in their entire lives. However, we label people and conclude that we need a specific educational degree to be more valuable than others. I am not against education excellence and degree; however, it does not entail the total value of a person. I visited Woolsthorpe Manor a few years back, where Issac Newton was born. When I visited there, I discovered that most of his remarkable discovery that led to the law of Universal gravitation was made when he was out of University due to the plague and stayed in his home and had to contemplate what he had learned. Time for contemplation is tough to manage in this fast-paced environment. However, without reflection and introspection, there is no vision. 

According to ancient Hindu scriptures, we have two kinds of vision (dristi) Garud drishti (Eagle) and Sarpa (Snake) drishti. In my learning curve, I have learned that we tend to focus on the right-now problem and, most of the time, cannot focus on the bigger picture. And most of our problem arises due to the inability to have "garud dristi "and focus on "sarpa dristi". People who work in healthcare know we are after numbers all the time, e.g., numbers for blood sugar, blood pressure, kidney function, etc., and if the numbers are not within normal range, we put tremendous effort and resources into fixing them. In one of the seminars I attended for diabetes management, one of the keynote speakers explained that we are not treating numbers but treating human beings. Sometimes, we must think outside the box, look beyond numbers, and see people as a whole. After working for many years, in retrospect, I can understand what he was trying to explain. I have realized that I have only a finite years to learn, but learning is infinite. However, I am returning to learn basic things. The biggest thing I am learning nowadays is the power of gratitude. I grew up in a culture where we rarely say thank you. We did not take people for granted but never used words to express our appreciation for others. Saying "Thank You" is something I am deliberately putting my effort in nowadays. And I have realized that expressing gratitude makes a lot of difference in other people's lives, and they feel acknowledged.

    Saying Thank You" and acknowledging people is my back-to-basics in my learning curve. What is your back-to-basics in your learning curve?