We Learn Best from the Worst

It is one of the paradoxes in life that we learn best from the worst. In "The Prophet," Kahlil Gibran put it this way: "I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange-I am ungrateful to those teachers."

A person who has had a cruel parent learns to be kind and loving to his own children. The person who is raised in bleak and oppressive poverty determines to succeed in the world so that his family will not have to go through the same exposure.

We resolve to drive carefully every time we see someone driving with reckless and murderous abandon or pass an accident. We resolve to remain sober when we see the drunk.

The fact is that we learn best from the worst. But like Gibran, we are ungrateful to those teachers. It's so much better to learn from the best, as we also do.

The child raised by kind and thoughtful parents will almost always grow naturally into kindness. The same effect is achieved but with love instead of hate. We can teach sobriety by being sober ourselves. Our children will learn to drive safely if we ourselves are safe drivers.

I remember being in a home not long ago where the father was boasting about the time he had made driving between two cities. I did a little quick calculating and suggested that he must have been driving at more than 80 miles per hour. He laughed and said that he frequently got up to and beyond 90.

Both his son and daughter were present, and I wondered what they thought about it. Did they realize their father was driving foolishly, or were they proud of his high-speed driving? Would they learn from the mistakes of their father and drive safely themselves? Or would they try to equal, or beat, his time-and, by so doing, endanger their lives and the lives of others on the highway? If one of them were killed because of high-speed driving, would the father be to blame?

We might turn again to Kahlil Gibran. He wrote: "When one of you falls down, he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone. Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who, though faster and sure of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone."

Just as we learn from the good and the bad of others, others learn from us. Each of us has a teacher to those who depend on us, and to those who are influenced by our conduct. In this way, we can see how important our daily conduct becomes-what we do and what we say; what we do not do and what we do not say.

So, whether we like it or not, each of us is a teacher. We're teaching others by our mistakes, and if we're smart, we'll learn from them, too. And we teach by the example we set in everything we do.

Twist of damage a young sapling, and a scarred or crooked oak will tell of the act for centuries to come. So it is with our teaching, which makes impressions on the mind and heart that are to last forever.

Gibran wrote: "I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange-I am ungrateful to those teachers."