Learning comes in different levels.
Reading a book is educational, but you might read thought-provoking non-fiction and find it simple and enjoyable, or you could be reading a book to study for the MCAT and find it utterly frustrating and difficult.
You can learn to garden and find it enjoyable, but learning a new job as the CEO of a large company could push you to new levels.
Learning on the outer edges of your comfort zone, or even beyond your comfort zone, can make you want to give up. It can be difficult to ever imagine that you will be able to comfortably converse about the topic or use the information towards your objective.
But think back to a topic you once had trouble understanding?
I spent over four years working with a couple of Medicaid programs. When I first started, trying to understand the eligibility criteria was daunting. I could only take in small bits of learning at a time, before I got too frustrated and quit. With time I came to understand the programs quite well, and I definitely knew where to look for more information.
It gets easier with time, and we grow through the challenging situations. If you are at the outer edges, always remember, it gets easier.
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Perhaps even more significant than the topics and subject matter we study, it is the people we learn from who are often responsible for taking us to those outer edges of our comfort zones (and beyond!) that Liz describes. The more folks we interact with, the more exposure we have to not only new topics and ideas, but also new and different ways we might express those ideas to one another.
I also spent several years learning those two specific subsets of Medicaid benefits. As Liz’s opposing counsel, I am quite sure that my office was just one of several sources of her frustration, necessitating small bits of learning. And vice versa. This is not to say that Liz was ever disagreeable or unprofessional—quite the opposite. Adversity is simply a big part of lawyering. What I will say, however, is that the complexities of Medicaid’s financial, medical, administrative and legal eligibility components often paled in comparison to the complicated, dynamic personalities that occupied that sphere.
I don’t know that things actually get any easier. But the more obtuse difficulties we face, the better we get at solving problems,, making things appear easier than they actually are.
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Good to hear from you Carlos!! Linked In told me you had new job – congrats. I wrote this as I was learning estate planning – which is what I do now working for myself. I may not have reflected it well, but I was really simply referring to the basic learning. I agree, I don’t know that human interactions get easier. But when I started to learn about the PCS program, I could only handle so much before I just couldn’t take in more information. With time, I developed a much deeper understanding of the program. As with estate planning, in the beginning there was so much I didn’t understand it was really overwhelming. Now I have a much better basic understanding and I find it easier to build on that foundation than to get the foundation in the first place. That’s my experience, but your comment makes me realize that we may all have a different relationship with this type of complex learning.
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