Many of us are raised holding certain values and opinions passed down to us from our families. This may especially be the case if you were raised in a conservative family or a more old-fashioned family, such as my own. Some people take on these values and choose to live by them for the rest of their lives. The smarter ones, however, choose to dig deeper into the things that they value and the things that they learned before they were capable of logical reasoning.
As children, most of our development is centered around curiosity. We ask countless questions about the world, we wonder why the sky is blue and we are thirsty to learn. Our craving for understanding and our desire to expand our knowledge creates the foundation for the concepts of unlearning and relearning.
There comes a point in time where you stop and question what you already know and how you came to know it. We begin to realize that many of the opinions we hold to be true are just prejudices. Once we come to this realization, we open the door to the most important growth skills – unlearning and relearning.
As you grow older, it becomes clear that it is OK to disagree with your parents, your siblings or anyone else who you surround yourself and to have your own opinions. You are able to conduct your own research on various topics like religion, education and politics. The process can be described as swimming in the opposite direction. You’ve been taught one thing, but you are striving to learn more about it – which may change your entire stance on whatever “it” is. This is not to say that unlearning and relearning requires you to disagree with what you previously learned. It is saying that choosing to explore your viewpoints is vital for personal growth and for developing a stronger voice.
In reality, life is not short at all; it is the longest thing we’ll ever experience – you have more than enough time to relearn everything that you thought you already knew. Only when you do so will you realize how oblivious you were to the world around you.
“If you don’t step out of the box you’ve been raised in, you won’t understand how much bigger the world is.” -Angelina Jolie