Watch and Learn

Some people would call me nosy. I prefer the term, 'lovingly curious'. I always have been, and probably always will be.

I've noticed recently that I love to learn, by watching others. It is something that I always did as a child, but never really clued into. Some of my most vivid and happy memories are of watching other people work and asking countless "why" questions. Being on the jobsite with my dad would make my week, or maybe even month. Or being in school and watching a man show us how to make cheap glasses, or just standing and watching the guards assemble an appatam. The joy would escalate when they would ask me to help, to even have me hold something while they continued on. The same mentality still applies, I love to learn by watching other people do what they love and are good at. Just this last week I went to the farm with Kevin (the husband of the couple I am staying with in Carstairs) and watched them saddle and train the horses (2 of them had never been ridden before). Although many people think I am bored because I will just sit there and watch, I never am. Quite the opposite really, I love every second of it!

You know when someone is doing something that they like to brag about, and they say, "watch and learn"? Well, really, we do. In everything, whether we realize it or not. We are being watched, and everyone around us is learning about what we do, and often immitating the same in what they do. Just think about it, say you are learning how to drive a stick shift, what do you do? Do you go out and try and do it all on your own? Well maybe if you are a fool, but normally you would go out with someone else, watch them do it and then try it yourself, immitating their actions. Of course you mess up a couple times because no one can perfect it on the first try, but then you watch and learn, and try again. It's a cycle, a cycle that we repeat on a daily basis.

Now instead of thinking of yourself as watching and learning, think of yourself as the one being watched, and learnt from. How does that feel? Do not expect to shrink into the background, your behaviour, actions and habits are being noticed by everyone who comes in contact with you. Yes, true strangers may not remember them, but they are noticed. What about the people you interact with one a daily basis? Your brothers, and your sister? What about the neighbor you only nod at but never acknowledge beyond that? What about your children? They are watching and learning. So when someone is just sitting on the sidelines silently, don't think they are bored and daydreaming, because they might just be watching and taking note of everything you do. So, what will they remember?