Experience is the worst teacher
Dear Lloyd,
We are back to square two, that is, Metro Manila and nearby provinces are placed again on modified ENHANCED COMMUNITY quarantine( ME C Q ). The effect of this recent development is yet to be seen but for sure, it’ s an indication that we’ re not doing a good job. Many schools are still unclear about what they want to do and how they intend to workout their plan. Any thought for me to understand what’ s happening?
April
April,
We can only be optimistic for some time, but at some point, when things become clearer, reality kicks in. Remember the time when we were cheering on the people in the frontline — our doctors and nurses particularly? It stopped and we moved forward, perhaps thinking that they can make it. Fast forward after four months; they said in chorus: Time out. We are tired.
That must be true.
I can’t imagine how they go about their work life now, but I believe it’s beyond the normal experience. Besides, this is an abnormal time and the situation is more than we can handle. That said, there must be truth in what our medical frontliners claim. They must be tired, not just physically but more so psychologically.
One doesn’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand the concept of wear-and-tear and that there is always a breaking point. To be constantly handling Covid19 cases on a daily basis, risking their lives while they’re missing their loved ones is, for lack of a better term, draining. Do they have a choice? Well, yes but only after they quit their post or resign from their job. Otherwise, the show goes on. It did and it is still going.
But since they don’t have a choice, the government and the people have a choice. We can choose to discipline ourselves by being fully aware of health protocols that were put in place since March. We have a choice to be extra conscious on what we do and how we do it. We have a choice to develop proper hygiene. If 100 million Filipinos and a million more foreigners in this country do this, we are helping those medical professionals, who don’t have any choice but to battle Covid-19 inside our medical facilities. If not, we are making their lives even more miserable than it is now.
Time and again, we hear this saying, “Experience is the best teacher.” Maybe it’s time to flip it upside down and look at it from the other side.
Our experiences teach us what works and what don’t. Once we know what works, we’ll keep on doing it obviously because it works. But such thinking can make us forget that there must be a better way of doing things. In other words, experience can give us an illusion that things are working even if in reality, they no longer do. Because our past experiences have brought us to a comfortable position, we hold on to the result rather than the next thing to do after the result.
I believe this is where we are now. The government, businesses, churches, communities had an experience before that taught them how to respond to a crisis before. Such experience is a bad teacher now because after four months, we are still at a loss.
We can’t solve a new problem with the same experience we used to solve the old ones. We are in a situation which requires a new set of eyes to see what is missing, what is wrong, what isn’t working. If we want to keep the same people, it’s fine. But the least that I can hope for is for the same people to have a new way of looking at things. As I always say, “What you see is more important than what you look at.”
If anything, this MECQ is just a temporary break, but nothing can be further from the truth. And the truth is, we are not winning this battle. As part of the learning community, it won’t hurt if we try to help ourselves create a new learning experience far from the traditional. The old ways of getting educated are now behind us. The experience we had brings us to where we are now. But if we are to move forward, go find another teacher, another experience.
Lloyd Luna, RS P, is the first registered Philippines. He is a motivational speaker on leadership and bestselling Step back: The Lost Art of Filipino Leadership. He is the chief executive officer of Step back, a leadership and culture development company that helps leaders and organizations life and at work. Visit his website www.stepback.ph or email him at lloyd@stepback.ph.