As the weather has finally come around, it’s time to transplant my indoor veggie plants outside. It’s been a long time coming. I started them from seed a couple months ago: broccoli, kale, jalepeño peppers, and cucumbers. The peppers didn’t sprout. The kale met an untimely end at the hands of a rabbit, squirrel, possum, raccoon, or some other creature that prowls my backyard at night. All that’s left are the broccoli and cucumbers, and their growing space is limited by the size of my pots (and recycled food containers). It’s time they had more space to grow.
After googling how to transplant indoor plants outside, the conventional wisdom is to leave them outside in their pots for a few hours each day, so that they become accustomed to the elements. This makes a lot of sense. I also love that gardeners call this period of seven to ten days, “hardening off”. It made me think about the benefits of “tough love,” “hardening,” and risk in learning
My cucumber plants soaking up the sun: They seem to like it as long as they are well-watered. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the bees are attracted to their little yellow flowers!
When you can touch the bottom, you’re not really swimming. The deep end is where we truly learn to swim. The reason is that there needs to be some risk for learning to take place. Often, we learn more effectively when the risks are greater. For example, children learn to ride a bike quicker without training wheels. Risk sharpens the senses and the mind. Think about a time that you felt you were thrown into the deep end, and you had to adapt to survive. It was sink or swim. Some of my guests have recalled similar experiences. Rob Kim’s father left him alone at a house painting job when he was in his early twenties. Monica Sarkar had to learn to cook while still a child, so that her brother and father could eat. Both are now experts at their craft (home improvement and cooking).
When I first started teaching, I had to learn quickly. My “training” consisted of a couple weeks of 10-minute practice lessons with groups of eight to ten novice monks. When I stepped into a classroom of fifty screaming Thai kids, I realized that much of that practice was useless. It was too controlled, unreflective of reality. My first real classroom smacked me in the face with a bamboo rod (the Thai teachers were allowed to use these with the students – I was not, and the students were fully aware of this). But I learned quickly. And I ended up loving teaching, so much so that it became something I decided to devote my life to. I wonder now if my passion for teaching was somehow rooted in this trial by fire.
Taking a class picture was difficult with so many students. This is one of about 20 classes I taught in Chon Buri, Thailand in 2008.
Of course, there is such a thing as too much risk. Most of the learning experiences described above weren’t life or death. The consequences may have even been quite minimal. However, at the time they didn’t seem minimal; for us, it may have seemed like a matter of life or death. I think this is the key to understanding why we learn so quickly in these situations: there is no room for fear. There is only room for action, and so we act with a clear head and an open heart. We may make mistakes, but we survive, and we grow. We also build confidence through these experiences. Any time I struggle with a classroom, I remind myself that I’ve been through worse.
I like to think that my broccoli and cucumbers are digging deep into their reserves of strength to withstand the wind, heat, critters, and other ravages of the world outside my house. If the elements are too harsh, I can always bring them inside (though they are not aware of this!). Sometimes all one needs to venture into the deep end is to have someone looking out for them. Most of us have that even if we aren’t always aware of it.
Learning by doing is scary. When my plants are settled into the garden, they may not thrive. Some may not even survive, but even if they don’t, I will learn something in the process. It’s definitely worth the risk. And who knows, I might even get a harvest of delicious vegetables (listen to the episode on vegetable gardening to learn how you too can grow your own veggies).
Have you had similar experiences? Tell us about them in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you!