21st Century Family

What is a student: “any person who studies, investigates, or examines thoughtfully: a student of ______.

When I think of a “student” the picture that comes to mind is that of a young adult sitting in a large library with super high ceilings. This student would essentially be surrounded by lots and lots of books. There would be books of all shapes and sizes on the large table he is studying at and there would be very high shelves around the entire building.

What if we could walk into a library like this and find rows and rows of data on our loved ones? We could gain deep insights into what they love and why. We could learn every single nuance about the way to properly communicate with them. All in all, you would have an invaluable road map to relate to every single person in your family. Then, in the next section of the library there would be a large area devoted specifically to the “how to” of interaction between all these various people in your family unit.  For example, how to best deal with situation “X” when these two siblings are together.

I’m going to rule out the parents that are simply too lazy or uninterested in their family to work at learning and assume there is at least a “desire to learn” present for the sake of this post.

There are three primary things that jump out at me with regard to being a good student: humility, desire and discipline.

Without humility a person won’t even realize they need to learn anything (I already know everything I need….or, it’s good enough). If they are humble and see the need then they might have a burning desire to do something about it and take action. Finally, they will need great discipline and endurance because of the hard work involved and the length of time it will take to learn such an ever changing set of variables. (I will try to break down these different elements in another post)