Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks

There's that saying that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. And that's most likely true for dogs.

But is it true for us, humans? Maybe it is, to some degree. To learn new things, it's a matter of a few elements that align the right way:

• desire
• motivation
• focus
• action
• consistency

The problem is that as people grow older they generally start to lack in most of these areas.

I know this is different for each person. But most often, when people grow old they either lack the desire to learn new things - or if they still have it - they lack the motivation: I'm an old person, what do I need this for, at my age?

And, if by any chance they have both, they can't focus anymore to learn something new, nor put into practice what they learn: It's complicated, why don't you do it for me, son/nephew?

And, of course, if they do it once, will they do it again or give up?

Source

I can tell I've been through this process (and in some ways I still am) with my father.

He's an old man already. And he lived through times without electricity. Later on, when dial phones were first introduced to our country, they were only available at the town hall, police station, and postal office. Probably at fire departments and other administration-related departments too. He worked at the town hall at the time (countryside), so he had access to a phone much sooner than we had one installed in our home. An early adopter, sort of.

Some years back, we gave him a smartphone and tried to teach him how to use it.

But to teach him to use a smartphone seemed an impossible task. He was simply stubborn. He had his non-technical training as a pretext not to learn.

He decided he can't use it and kept saying he wants a phone with buttons again (i.e. Nokia - he had one in the past and remembered he was pleased by it). He kept insisting that he can't use the smartphone and he wants a Nokia phone back.

Well, in the end, the stars aligned for him, the smartphone broke down and my brother-in-law bought him a Nokia, despite the fact I told my father he will regret that because technology evolved. I was right, Nokia broke down on him in 6 months (not after causing him plenty of issues), and then he finally had to 'embrace' the smartphone.

Now he uses the smartphone decently, including the internet, which is a miracle.

So, sometimes, to take a step forward, you really need a step back, to understand what a leap the step forward really is. And to find the motivation to move forward.

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