One of the best ways to succeed at anything is to study the thoughts and behaviors of the people who have already succeeded at the very thing you are approaching. It might even be useful to spend time learning the best ways to study and retain information, enhancing your efficiency. Learning how to learn is one of the most underrated skills in my opinion.
“Mastery” by Robert Greene and “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill are two books that teach useful ways to learn from those who have come before us. Robert Greene teaches an approach to learning that is more straightforward and practical while Napoleon Hill teaches an approach to learning that uses a bit more of the imagination.
These concepts really helped me out in a big way, but their focus is limited. Their main focus is on one side of the coin: The emulation of success, light, accomplishment, and goodness.
If one wants to learn how to move through the world with greater peace and harmony, it is perhaps even more useful to look at the opposing side of the coin. Have we forgotten how to learn from the shadows that are constantly reflected back to us in this world? We’ve collectively spent so much time focused on learning from studying the greats, and not enough time learning from their opposing counterparts. This truth functions both on a macro-level with historical figures and on a micro-level with personal figures in our lives.
Macro-level:
History repeats itself. We continue to experience atrocities, dictatorships, war, genocide, and societal collapse in our modern world. If we spent more time learning from Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden, colonialism, slavery, war, lies, hatred, and deception than maybe we wouldn’t continue to allow these energies to create destruction in our world.
The humans behind these evil atrocities are still humans, made of the same physical contents as you and me. They are the sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, friends, and lovers who have gone awry. Their sameness is why they have this capacity to teach us. It’s easy to bypass their sameness, but when we do this we also bypass the lessons they have for us, leading to the same repeated atrocities over and over again.
What we can take from the humans behind some of the world’s greatest atrocities is incredibly important, but it is debatably more applicable to the leaders in the world than it is to the common person, which is why I find it more useful to focus on the micro-level aspects of learning from these types of figures in our personal lives.
Micro-level:
I recently made a list of the greatest teachers I’ve ever had in my personal life. Some of the people who came up were old school teachers, coaches, mentors, friends, family, and healers that I’ve worked with and encountered. It became clear to me that more than half of my top 10 greatest teachers were actually people that fall closer into the category of “enemy” to me than they do “ally”.
Enemy is a dramatic term that I am using for lack of a better word. When I say that, I really mean bad bosses, annoying coworkers, rude neighbors, family members that get under our skin the most, even bad drivers on the road, etc. If you are fortunate enough to develop true enemies in your life that supersede the examples I’ve listed, consider it a massive gift. The greater the challenge with a particular person, the greater the potential to alchemize it into a valuable lesson.
These figures in our lives have the capacity to be our greatest teachers if we allow them to.
Whether they are teaching us about patience, discernment, trust, acceptance, unconditional love, forgiveness, humility, or one of the other many qualities or virtues, these are the lessons that have the capacity to not just teach us tools and skills, but also to expand our consciousness in a massive way that invites more peace into our lives.
As you shift your attention towards this potential, welcoming your enemies with a compassionate invitation and gratitude for the teaching, you decrease the resistance and you move the discomfort out of your way. These figures are not an obstacle to wisdom and freedom, they are the direct pathway to wisdom and freedom.
They are not the exception, they are the rule.