Friends make good teachers (Learning #3)

This weekend was a busy weekend. I had a ton going on. Sometimes it felt like every minute was scheduled. Yet, even though this weekend was packed with different events, I still had time to learn something. The lesson I picked up this weekend was to learn from those around you. Most of the time you think of learning, a classroom and a professor are the natural images that come to your mind. However, the world can teach you just as much.

On Friday and Saturday, I spent a majority of my day in a leadership seminar discussing the concept of ethical leadership. We spent a lot of time talking about ethics and what we valued. I learned about myself, things like what my values were. I knew that I valued justice, but until I was forced to chose between justice, determination and creativity, I didn’t realize how high I had placed creativity on my list.

I also learned from my peers. I listened to what they took into account when making decisions and what they valued. Through their ideas I was able to develop and discover things that I valued and didn’t realize how much. Learning from my peers was a great experience because I got to experience new ideas that I hadn’t previously taken into account.

The most fruitful learning experience from that seminar was something I had never before considered doing. We were instructed to make our own code of ethics. This is a task that I had never had to complete for a class, something that I would have probably missed out on if I wasn’t in that seminar. I learned to build something that I could rely on, and it has already helped me in making decisions.

My peers and leaders in the seminar weren’t the only people I learned from this weekend. I also learned from my sorority sisters. It seems like everyone talks about “service” and how you should serve others. My sisters illustrated how simple serving others can really be. While we were at Relay For Life this weekend, a lady asked us to do the electric slide with her so that she didn’t have to dance it alone. I was reluctant. My sorority sisters, however, weren’t. They went out and danced the electric slide, and I went with them. Even though it isn’t the most fun dance (it was actually pretty boring), we made the lady’s day by agreeing to dance it with her. I learned that the simple things can make someone’s day and “service” can come in all different forms. It isn’t always helping with charities.

These experiences are unique to me, and organic. While I was in a learning environment for the leadership seminar, I wasn’t expecting to turn around and use my code of ethics the next day. I wasn’t expecting to learn how much certain values are actually important to me. When at Relay For Life, I wasn’t expecting a lesson in service from my sorority sisters. But I was grateful to learn that lesson from them. To learn that service comes in many different forms and difficulties.

The lessons I learn from my peers will stick with me because I can look at my friends and see the lessons playing out without them knowing. They aren’t sitting me down and lecturing me. I am looking at them being their organic selves and finding lessons. I think that I can learn a lot from my friends. We all have different skill sets and different ways of approaching life. I’m excited and intrigued by the lessons they may not know they have to teach me. Friends that challenge you can be the best teachers, because they don’t realize they are teaching. You teach yourself the lessons from their examples.