If someone asks me, how many planets are there in the solar system? Nine, umm… No eight. It always confuses me, as when I was required to memorize it, Pluto was still a planet. We need to be cautious while answering such questions. Things keep changing and if we don’t learn new things, we may go wrong. Even thinking of learning something new bothers us. Why do we refrain from learning something new? We usually don’t understand what learning is. We always focus in the wrong direction. The problem isn’t learning: it’s unlearning. It is not difficult to learn that there are eight planets, but to unlearn that there were nine. All of us have acquired knowledge to built our mountain of ideas, some still viable and others obsolete.
What is unlearning?
The most overlooked aspect of learning is the process of unlearning. Unlearning is not about rearranging or reframing something, it is about moving away from something we know. Intending to let go of what we have already learned. It is not about right or wrong, it is about exploring the new ideas. It is like clearing of the field for new crops.
In our daily lives we use the information that is outdated or obsolete. To be comfortable with the new idea, we have to unlearn the old one. Unlearning is not forgetting. It is the ability of choosing an alternative idea. When we learn, we add new skills or knowledge to what we already know. When we unlearn, we expand the dimensions of our thinking and see a big picture. The most successful people will always be the ones who unlearn, learn, relearn and evolve with it.
Learning to unlearn
We all are taught some important lessons in our lives – to talk, to walk, to behave, and even to learn. The one important lesson that most of us never get is – a lesson in unlearning. Unlearning is about challenging what you know, or the established, and questioning the accepted.
Remember you must never ignore what you already know, but should be brave enough to question it. It is the guiding principle for quashing the old rules and establishing the new ones. Everything keeps changing and everyone has to look at things from prospective of today and tomorrow. Whatever we do, is for the future and to be ready for it one must be open to new ideas.
We lose the desire to learn, somewhere between memorizing and the pressure to get good grades in school. It becomes a habit that we stick with what we know and avoid any circumstances or situations which force us to learn something new, hence creating a safe and comfortable bubble for ourselves. We do our best to prevent changes around us — to fit with our present imagination. All of us at some point say that we are open to change, but in reality we do our best to avoid it.
If you have heard about the Italian astronomer, physicist and mathematician, Galileo Galilei. At the time of his death, he had been under house arrest for 8 years as a result of having said that the sun remains motionless and that the earth revolves around it. Today we call it truth or knowledge and his discovery – great. We will defend it with all our might and wit, this is the notion we need to change. A new discovery may change it, we must always be ready to unlearn.
Those who find the opportunities are those who keep looking for them. The choice is simple: act or be acted upon. Change is the only constant thing we can always rely upon. To be the part of big game, we must learn. The most important component of learning is unlearning. So the phrase “learning to learn” should be “learning to unlearn” as learning is more closely related to unlearning – “freeing from what we have learned.”
The process of unlearning
- Always be open to new ideas
- Don’t be afraid to admit that what you know is outdated
- Understand the difference between your current knowledge and the new idea, and off course the logic
- Accept the new idea and make it your own, build upon it and you may find something new
Albert Einstein once said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
We can always start by unlearning what we think of learning.
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” – Alvin Toffler
If you wish to learn, be ready to unlearn.
Awesome buddy!!
Thank you.