Know-it-all

“I want to learn.” Is learning more of a want or a need? Looking it up in the dictionary, I was surprised to see where the confusion may emanate from. Interestingly, the word want and need have been classified as synonyms. A need is a necessity, while the word want is defined as something of desire.

So is a want a much more powerful driver in setting and hopefully achieving goals?

Several weeks ago, I happened to verbalize to our “resident brain,” our go-to person for anything and everything, why my mental functioning seems to go into an immediate short circuit when the topic being discussed is immunology. I went on to add, that though it is easily comprehensible when he explains it, there is a great danger of misinformation if we are asked to echo and deliver it. To this query, he replied, “Intelligence is not required if you truly want to understand, it all boils down to interest.”

Credit it to my being a female, my tendency to overanalyze, and my constant exposure to his uncustomized way of looking at things. This is my version of his one-liner: that if you want to contribute to your true personal growth, you have to be interested in learning not only those that are medical in nature, but to expand into other things that are totally unrelated to what you do.

Fast forward and let me share with you a learning experience that I was fortunate to be part of, with him in it. The activity on hand was still related to our job as health professionals but was made exciting because it was something that had never been done before.

We were the co-leads in a pilot project on the use of motivational interviewing as a tool in improving our conversations with patients, particularly those who are vaccine-hesitant. Vaccine hesitancy, as we are all aware, is a huge player in the decline in immunization coverage rates for vaccine-preventable diseases and for newly introduced vaccines as well.

None of us, including him, had prior formal training. The initial program had been reserved for us to learn to eventually be the facilitators in the workshop. Most of us were comfortable enough to admit that we were apprehensive. It came as a pleasant surprise that the experts on the subject acknowledged they were as well. This raw and honest exchange of feelings was a refreshing part of the whole intellectual discourse. Admittedly, much work still has to be done to ultimately assess the power of motivational interviewing in changing behavior.

Watch and learn. Typical of who he is, he was unaware that he was modeling to the group how best to be a good student. His demeanor and his actions spoke of how pleasurable learning can be if you only allow it. He openly engaged in the discussion, was unafraid to ask questions and share his opinions, was unconcerned about committing mistakes, and more importantly did not dwell on them nor take offense from being corrected on that rare occasion when it was warranted. When it was his turn to be teacher, he was committed to sharing what he had learned and explained it in his own fashion and in a way that just made sense to everyone.

This one experience had a domino effect on needed reflections, all because of consciously wanting to watch and learn from him. One, the gift of intellect is not a license to be a snob or be smug, or, worse, make someone feel inferior. Second, you may know much, but you do not know it all. More importantly, you never will. If this is something you have not been fortunate to realize as of yet, pray for that one person who either has the courage or who cares enough to let you know. Third, humility is a virtue and the very first step to learning. Last but not the least, aging should never be a hindrance for one to keep on enjoying life. We need to be open and embracing, for there is so much room for growth. The world really has no place for one who sadly believes he knows it all.

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