11.07.2005

Being Perturbed

A friend shared with me one of the secrets about learning. Real "cellular" learning occurs under pressure or when you stand in the heat. It's called "perturbation." Whe we are perturbed we put ourselves outside our comfort zone -- that is when we can make quantum leaps in our ability to be resourceful, dealing with the complexities related to things like our relationships and finances.
In 1977, the Nobel prize for chemistry was given to Ilya Prigogine, a Russian physicist wsho actually discovered that perturbation is how nature actually grows. Science again proving in specific what we sense generally.
Learning comes from the willingness to push where few dare to go. Rather than running from the "heat" in our lives -- look for it and jump into it!!
Life at the boundaries is where growth happens.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brian,
Thanks for this post. I've emailed it to my school account so I can share it with my high schoolers. Many of them don't want to put themselves in a place of perturbation. If it's not easy, they think they can't learn it.

--Christine

Brian "Oke" O'Connell said...

You're very welcome!