Learn to Unlearn

In my life, I have focused not just on learning but also on unlearning. We all absorb bad patterns and habits and even knowledge at some point in our lives, and it’s important to be aware that this happens so that we can overcome it.

Many of the things we learned were never worth learning. Or they were only worth learning so that we could realize that they were wrong and stop doing them.

Here are a few things I have unlearned in my life:

1.     Sudden Anger and Impatience

In my teenage years, I was generally calm. Still, I recall that if I became upset about something, I would sometimes get suddenly angry and impatient, not handling the situation well. And some of this extreme impatience carried on into my twenties as well.

By my mid-twenties, I realized that this was terribly maladaptive and that this was not helping me grow, and my behavior would only drive people out of my life. I realized that my loved ones did not deserve this from me, and usually, they were the ones who had to suffer through it.

Most of the time, I was fine – but I was fairly easily pushed to my limits back then, and I would sort of blow up in anger, making minor situations into something much bigger than they needed to be.

I unlearned this quickly when I had the realization that my wife (who was my girlfriend at that time) did not deserve to deal with this and that she probably would not deal with it for long. Eventually, it seemed clear that she would leave if I could not manage my behavior appropriately.

Strangely, unlearning this was easier than I thought. I’m sure it was a challenge at first, but I feel that in a matter of months, I made a sizeable change in my behavior. I was no longer blowing up over trivial matters. Over the years, I was able to become a great example of patience rather than impatience. I do not get angry very easily at all anymore. In fact, I think it takes much more for me to become angry than it would for most people.

2.     Intense Shyness

Through much of my childhood and young adulthood, I feel that I was intensely shy. Although never diagnosed, I may have had social phobia / social anxiety disorder. Sometimes the thought of being around new people would make me very anxious. Inside, all I wanted to do was avoid being around new and unfamiliar people.

If I knew there would be a lot of people around at a gathering or party, I sometimes would feel physically unwell from the anxiety.

Even for the people I knew, if I didn’t know them very well, I often felt uncomfortable. And even for the people I was more familiar with, I sometimes felt anxious and uncertain about how to handle a social situation.

What helped me unlearn this intense shyness / social anxiety was realizing that there was no single right way to handle a social situation. I often felt that I had failed to properly socialize with people, which made me want to avoid these situations more and more. But when I realized there was no one right way to do things, it became easier.

Of course, it was also an important shift when I realized that I had a real problem. I was actually scared and overly worried about talking to someone new. This was an irrational fear that I could be rejected, misunderstood, that I would be disliked, or perhaps even made fun of if people thought my social skills were not good enough.

To unlearn my bad patterns, I began to make it a point to interact with as many people as I could. If I were invited to something, I would go even if I had to fight my own instincts to avoid it. I made an effort to speak to new people, although I’m sure many people would have easily spotted me as an extreme introvert. They probably could not have known that merely showing up to a place with people could take some effort from me.

In time, I found it easier to engage in conversations, let go a bit, and enjoy conversations with new people. I no longer had to analyze whether my social skills were good enough. I realized that the less I thought and worried about my social skills, the better things went.

Eventually, I lost most of the anxiety. I can still get a bit of anxiety if I meet a group of new people, but I think it is normal and mild. It is nothing like the outright fear that I used to have.

3.     Responding By Feeling Depressed or Hopeless

I’m not sure when I began feeling depressed if things would not go my way. It was probably connected to feeling like a failure socially. But in my late teens / early twenties, if I didn’t perform as well as I hoped on an assignment or test, I may get depressed about it. At some point, I may have gotten used to being in a depression, and I didn’t really work to get the things I wanted out of life. I accepted it for what it was, which is a horrible way to deal with it.

Then when I began graduate school and faced the biggest challenges of my life, I became deeply depressed. My natural response to challenges and obstacles was to feel depressed, and so it made sense that I would get deeply depressed then.

To overcome this took therapy and medication for a couple of years. Then I meditated to help keep control of my mind. I also decided always to take action to make things better rather than to allow my thinking to drift deeper and deeper into depressive loops.

I’m not sure that depression is always something that can be unlearned, as everyone is different. In my case, I was fortunate that through my own will to change, I was able to unlearn this habit. My habit had become that when something didn’t go my way, I got depressed. So it was critically important that I develop a better response to such challenges in my life.

Unlearning my depressive habits was something that took years. My therapist at that time stated it perfectly to me once – she said: “You have spent a long time with certain issues, and it can take time to work your way out of them and to heal them.” Similarly, as with the prior examples, I feel that I am quite resilient at this point, and I do not fall into a depressive mood or state very easily.

What is Worth Unlearning in Your Life?

In revealing the above things I unlearned, I see that a common theme is I wanted my freedom. I was trapped by my anger, shyness, and depression. And in time, I was able to unlearn those behaviors and to live my life more freely. I didn’t need to respond to the world by withdrawing from it. Instead, I could participate in it and enjoy it.

Is there something in your life that is holding you back that you would like to unlearn? Often we focus on learning new things, but it is just as worthwhile to unlearn the bad habits and thought processes that are preventing us from leading the life we truly want to live.

Surely everyone’s problems and paths to overcome them will be different. But in my life, usually, I noticed that there was a big problem holding me back. Then I realized that this was important enough that I needed to work on it. There was a point where it was no longer a question – to meet my life goals and live the way I wanted to, I would need to dedicate myself to overcome certain issues. The particular steps you take from there may be different, but eventually, you will find your way to better if you are committed.