Often, we think of learning as a purely additive experience. For example, if I read an article about parrot fish living on the Great Barrier Reef, when I previously didn’t know a thing about sea life off the coast of Australia, I gain something. It adds to my collection of facts, like a new piece of furniture in a room.
The same might go for some new fruit in the grocery store, a new app on my phone, or a handy new way to say “thank you” to a friend in Turkish. Life’s lessons, however, are rarely so simple. They aren’t like adding furniture to a room; they’re like moving walls and replacing doorways. To rebuild the room, something’s gotta feel the business end of a sledgehammer.