there is always something more we can learn

I am quite possibly one of the world’s worst spellers. I mean I am terrible. I simply am not able to visualize how letters work together to create sounds and therefore how words are constructed. To this day I can only correctly type the word “restaurant” on a keyboard based on a memorized nuance in my keystroke pace and pattern; if I’m handwriting the word I need to physically stop and think about the rule about the “u” and the “a” placement that I created for a spelling test in the third grade featuring this word. I am in no way exaggerating. 

Since I haven’t taken a spelling test in years coupled with my trusty friend, spell-check, there are some words that I simply never got down: efficiency, entrepreneur, disclosure. Just to name a few. 

Why am I telling you about my terrible spelling ability? To prove the point that we are never too old to stop learning. Yes, I know this is not a very original thought. But I also want to point out a slightly different, perhaps slightly more unique thought, that we are never too old to come up with ingenious, little ways to teach ourselves. 

Last night while doing a bit of work late at night (sigh) I found myself trying and failing at spelling out the word “entrepreneur” four times. I got so fed up with myself that I employed my go-to strategy of finding it written somewhere else (nine times out of ten this “somewhere else” is Google so as you can imagine I have a very interesting search history) then copied and pasted the correct spelling. 

When I copied and pasted the word last night it was in an oversized large font different from what I was using. Rather than simply changing the font style I decided I would type out the correct spelling of the word, very slowly to be sure I was transcribing it correctly. 

It was like a lightbulb went off in my head. If I would simply force myself to re-type the word each time, even if I have to search its proper spelling on Google, the efficiencies and entrepreneurs of the world would eventually stop stumping me. I had found a new little trick to teach myself how to learn their spellings.

Again this is not rocket science, I know. Practice and study pays off. But being out of an academic situation for a number of years now it felt like a novel idea. 

I’ve decided that this would be a new rule I employ in an effort to improve my spelling. It was then that I thought this might make an interesting post since this idea is actually pretty transferrable. Just by stopping and making ourselves repeat and think through something more than we need to we can glean some knowledge, even just small knowledge, which all adds up.