The French say that ‘Learning is the eye of the mind’. I can say that I personally learn through experiences way more than reading or observing people. The transition from referring to phonebooks to call my friends, having 1 rupee Pepsis, playing Lagori to actually adulting and managing finances, I can say that I had a glow up. This transition had elements of happiness, joy, fear, embarrassment, anger, and frustration that all resulted in me feeling overwhelmed. I thought I was the only one, but then I realized that each one of us feels this wave of emotions. My younger self was shy and meek. Today's world could easily trample the younger me. But, I am grateful for the new, challenging, and adventurous experiences that I have had as they make me the tough and bold adult me today.
The very first swim I had was in just 3ft of water, my legs were trembling and I was shivering with chilliness. However, I still remember my first backwater float & my first lap. The 4-year-old me had a brimming smile and I felt like I was on top of the world. If we see it from an adult point of view, it was just a regular swim, that wouldn’t be a big deal. The sense of overcoming fear was thrilling and it gave me a zeal for achievement. I can say that my first successful swimming experience was a huge confidence booster for me.
Each experience has an emotion attached to it. We learn with new experiences, and slowly we learn to deal with these emotions as well. When we transition from children to adults, we start giving importance to things that we feel are important. For instance, pass board exams with good marks, get a suitable degree, get a job, and then get settled. Even I would consider that through this transition I have learned, but just according to the set norms of society.
Like my younger self, acknowledged and enjoyed even the small moments like eating new chocolate or learning new card games with my grandma, the adult I had missed out on learning through these minuscule moments. As an adult, I feel my mind is so focused on the bigger picture of achieving things, that I forget to explore and experience things that I would love to.
We don’t know when and how time flies. Living in the moment, the choice of experiencing and learning what you want to do is in your hand. We often just think that we should travel, join dance classes or experience those basic hobbies that our younger carefree self would enjoy. Here we are mistaken as we tend to only think, overthink and not really do. This gap between thinking and actually implementing our thought could be our emotion of fear or just a lack of time management. As adults, we are proud of our younger selves as we stumbled over those new experiences and rose higher to our tough bold selves.
We just need to realize whatever phase of life we are in, we are learning from it. The more we seek to experience new aspects of life the more we learn. Today my younger self would be literally so proud of me right now and I can’t wait to explore, experience, and learn many more new ways, just to think about all of them when the 90-year-old me will sit with a cup of ginger tea and just smile over the thought of it.