Recently, while sitting beside my grandson—who will soon be two years old—I found myself pondering the mystery of human development. At his age, he still can’t form complete sentences. Yet, surrounded by people who speak, he listens, learns, and experiments with sounds. We are not overly concerned about his current communication abilities. We understand that if he’s a normal, healthy child, the words will start to come. It’s just a matter of time, nourishment, and environment.
This is how nature teaches us one of life’s most important lessons: learning is a gradual process, not a sudden leap.
The Evolving Rhythm of Growth
Every genuine learning process follows a natural rhythm. Skills develop through practice, exposure, and repetition. Just as speech blossoms after many failed attempts at words, so do other abilities—such as understanding, patience, discipline, or faith. Expecting instant mastery is to misunderstand how human growth works.
The natural process requires us to build a healthy environment, provide encouragement, and give time. Shortcuts, on the other hand, often produce fragile illusions of growth that break down under pressure.
The Danger of Pretending
One of the biggest risks in learning—or in character building—is the temptation to show results before they are genuinely there. We want others to believe we have improved, so we imitate fluency, exaggerate strengths, or put on a polished front.
But this pretense fosters a subtle duplicity: the exterior we present doesn’t align with the inner self we cultivate. Over time, this gap between appearance and reality erodes integrity, making us more focused on impressions than authentic growth.
Trusting the Process
The lesson is straightforward but deep:
Growth happens naturally when we nurture it with patience.
Progress shows when practice is consistent.
Authenticity is more important than appearances.
Just as a child’s first words cannot be hurried, our deeper learning in life—whether intellectual, emotional, or spiritual—needs time, sincerity, and trust in the process. Forcing it or faking it means losing the core of what learning is meant to be: a journey of becoming, not just a performance of seeming.
Reflection
Where in your life do you feel pressured to demonstrate results before your inner process has fully developed?
How can you realign with the natural rhythm of growth?
https://moizamjad.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Reflections-300x138.png00Moiz Amjadhttps://moizamjad.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Reflections-300x138.pngMoiz Amjad2025-11-03 05:00:072025-11-03 04:05:24Learning: A Natural and Evolving Process
After completing a training workshop[1], invariably I get calls from participants who express concern about why they tend to ignore practicing the different concepts they have learned, even after comprehending them and agreeing with them. For instance, they would ask why they face difficulty in practicing the various guidelines of “effective conversations” or “expressing appreciation and disagreements” in their everyday lives. The same phenomenon can also be observed in corporate trainings. Almost 90% of training workshops conducted in the corporate sector, rated very highly immediately after completion, fail to bring about any significant and consistent change in the participants. Why is it so? Are the participants so utterly devoid of commitment? Motivation? Will power? Does the problem lie with team cultures? Do organizational environments discourage such transformations? Or is the resistance to making a change a natural phenomenon?
My short answer to such questions is that reading and understanding a book on Emotional Intelligence and being Emotionally Intelligent are two entirely different phenomena requiring different capacities from us. A more detailed answer, however, is given below:
There are two kinds of problems we face: “Technical Challenges” and “Adaptive Challenges.”[2]
In a Technical challenge, the skillset required to overcome the challenge is generally well-known. A strong desire to overcome the challenge, access to the necessary information about the skillset, the opportunity to learn that skillset, and a commitment to put in the required effort are likely to allow one to overcome such challenges[3].
Adaptive challenges, on the other hand, require a change in the mindset, attitudes, assumptions, and beliefs of the person trying to tackle them[4]. It may be interesting to note that one’s mindset, attitudes, assumptions, and beliefs constitute one’s psychological “self” or “identity.” As a result, overcoming an Adaptive challenge, in a way, puts one’s current psychological “self” and “identity” at risk. This is where our “psychological immune system” comes into play.
Like its biological counterpart, which protects our biological “identity” and “self,” our psychological immune system protects our psychological “identity” and “self.”
When we tackle Adaptive challenges, our psychological immune system is on high alert to protect us from destroying our psychological “self” and “identity” and to protect us from the consequent psychological pain, suffering, or even “death.” Also, like the biological immune system – which, for instance, can severely obstruct adaptability in organ transplants and, thus, work against the very system it was meant to protect – our psychological immune system, if not kept in check, can block any changes we know are desirable and, sometimes, even necessary for our psychological growth and wellbeing.
Overcoming an Adaptive challenge requires one to be committed to learning a new behavior, on the one hand, while also being willing to risk one’s current identity and psychological “self” to develop a new and improved identity and psychological “self,” on the other.
Another aspect of Technical and Adaptive challenges that makes the situation more complex is that some challenges can be Technical for one person and Adaptive for another. One person may find it sufficient to get information about maintaining a healthy lifestyle for actually maintaining one. Another person may have all the information about maintaining a healthy lifestyle but find it irresistible to avoid eating sweets whenever they are in sight.
The difference between Adaptive and Technical challenges makes it imperative that we 1) recognize them as two separate challenges, 2) know how to diagnose and separate them from each other, and 3) treat them differently.
For Technical problems, the solution lies in disseminating and delivering the required information by organizing training programs and workshops. Adaptive problems, on the other hand, require us to make conscious and intentional alterations in our mindsets, attitudes, assumptions, and beliefs.
But how does one achieve that?
Two developmental psychologists at Harvard – Robert Kegan and Lisa L. Lahey – and their colleagues developed and refined the answer to this question. Our workshop, “Overturning our Immunity to Change,” is based on their answer.
Video Introduction
[1] The topics of my workshops are generally related to character development and moral uplifting.
[2] See “The Practice of Adaptive Leadership” by Ronald Heifetz
[3] Such challenges may include learning to fly a plane, becoming a chef, a surgeon, a typist, reading a book on Emotional Intelligence, etc.
[4] Such challenges may include being more emotionally intelligent, developing a healthy lifestyle, being more mindful of the impact of one’s actions on others, overcoming an addiction, being more empathic with oneself and others, etc.
Close to the border of Punjab and Sindh lies the city of Rahim Yar Khan. I had to travel there from Lahore on the 8th of December, 2019. I had to conduct a workshop session there, the next day. This time, the topic was “Our Impact on those Around Us.”
One of the discomforts that I have to face because of traveling is due to my own finical and restricted taste in food. I don’t like eating out. So, sometimes I try to make do on fresh fruits or even a packet of potato chips. 9th December was one such day. After having completed my session, I returned to my room at the Sadiq Club. I asked the manager on duty if I could get an egg sandwich. I was informed that the club did not have an in-house kitchen. So, I decided to take a walk to a nearby shop and get myself a packet of potato chips and a lemon malt. The shop was hardly 250 meters away from where I was staying.
As I started my walk back, after my shopping, I was a little startled as a young boy on a motorbike halted right beside me. A sudden storm of thoughts flooded my mind. Was he going to snatch the bag of my potato chips and lemon malt? Was I being robbed? Abducted? As the storm subsided, I realized that the boy was too frail to abduct me. There was nothing in his hands even remotely resembling a weapon, so a robbery was also not a possibility. Finally, having come to a complete halt, he was not in a position to snatch the bag from my hand.
As I returned to reality from my adventurous imaginations, I heard him say: “Uncle, sit. I’ll give you a ride.” Surprised at his offer, I told him: “I am staying at this club, it is just a few meters away.” He said: “I’ll drop you wherever you want to go.” Not able to control my curiosity, I asked: “Why do you want to help me, son?” I was pleasantly surprised, when he replied: “Because I want to be a good human being.” Lost for words, I silently sat behind him on his motorbike.
It was a very short companionship, yet a very impactful one.
Within a few seconds, we had stopped at the gate of the club where I was staying. Again, for the lack of anything better that came to my mind, I heard myself saying, “Son, can I give you some money?” He smiled and said, “No. No. That will spoil everything.” I asked him, “Spoil what?” He replied, “My effort to be a good human being.” I asked him again, “Seriously, why did you help me?” He replied, “My father used to tell me to help others, in whatever way I can. He used to say, ‘it is best that you help strangers, whom you are not even likely to meet again, as that will keep your heart clear of any expectations of a return.’ That, he used to say, is what makes a good human being.”
That was the last that I saw that young boy. As I was walking to my room, I was thinking about his father. He must have been an unusual man. In these times, when most parents only want to know about their child’s grades and scores, he was an exceptional parent, who ignited a very different aspiration in his son’s mind.
I entered my room and started preparing to review the material for my session scheduled for the next day. As I opened my files, the title of the session caught my eyes: “Our Impact on those Around Us.”
The smiling face of the young boy was clear in my mind.
https://i0.wp.com/moizamjad.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/GHB.png?fit=548%2C319&ssl=1319548Moiz Amjadhttps://moizamjad.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Reflections-300x138.pngMoiz Amjad2019-12-15 17:11:222026-01-06 17:44:41The Making of a Good Human Being
Sometimes we do things in life without even thinking how lasting their impact can be and when we might be revisited by them.
When I started writing on the World Wide Web – back in 1996 – I changed my language of writing from Urdu to English. Before that, Urdu had been my primary language – at least for writing. I had worked hard to be able to write in a way that would be comprehensible for a common educated person. For almost seven years I wrote exclusively in the Urdu language. I have an impression from the comments of a few of my close and ‘blunt’ friends that I had developed into an acceptably readable writer.
In 1996, I was accidentally introduced to the internet. I was immediately stuck on the idea that the World Wide Web was the media of the future. I started thinking about how to use it. No one among my colleagues and teachers agreed with me at that time. In fact, I was sometimes even dissuaded and discouraged from trying to go for it. Nevertheless, I decided to give it a try – even if only as an experiment. It was then that I decided to revive my “prowess” of the English language.
Another factor that had kept me from writing in the English language – even though the institution that I was affiliated with was producing a monthly English journal of its own – was that my proficiency in the language was not considered to be of an acceptable level. One of my very well-wishing colleagues once remarked that if I wanted to write in English, I should learn some basic rules of the language first. Unfortunately, however, my impatience to express myself always overwhelmed and strangled the patience which was required to learn the art of expression.
It was in this background that in 1996 I started writing in the English language. Also, most probably, it was because of this background that my initial writings were written under a pseudonym.
We – humans – have the ability and the intelligence to justify our decisions and actions. We can fabricate an apparently morally superior motive for our decisions and actions than the one that is real. Although its been close to 24-years, but today I have a feeling that that was my case when I was asked to explain my reason for writing under a pseudonym. My answer then was that I do not want to write for fame or for being known. But, as I look back today – almost 24-years later – I have serious doubts that my answer fully depicted my intentions. I think a more accurate reason could have been my fear of failure that discouraged me from using my real name.
So, it was a pseudonym that I started writing under. The name that I selected for myself at that time was “The Learner.”
I liked the sound as well as the implication of this name. It clearly meant that I was not writing from a position of authority, but was actually using my writings as a learning process. It also continuously reminded me that there should be no place for the arrogance of certainty and closed-mindedness in my life as “The Learner.” Although, I continued writing under this pseudonym for almost a year, but I was so fond of this name that even my email address at that time had the same handle “learner.” This email address lasted for almost 8-years. Then, some time in 2005, I opened a “gmail” account, where I started operating my email account with my real name, after which “The Learner” was completely abandoned.
Thus, “The Learner” is what transpired in my life almost a quarter-of-a-century back.
A few months back, while reading a book, I was confronted with a very interesting and important question. The book asked me “Who are you and what is the identity that you have chosen for yourself?” It also reminded me that when faced with this question, we have a tendency to answer it by naming our position, responsibility, or work. Most of us may answer this question with words like politician, service-man, teacher, student, mother, father, manager, accountant, or bureaucrat, etc. However, these words do not tell who we are or what our identity is. On the contrary, these are all transient positions that we hold in the journey of our lives. Our identity should not be dependent on something that is transient, because then our identity too will lack any permanence. The key is to describe yourself with a name that is big enough to contain your whole life, as you imagine it today.
With all these instructions in mind, I set out on a search. It did not take me long to answer the question. My quarter-of-a-century-old pseudonym came to my rescue as the first part of my answer, and my learnings during these years provided me with the second part. I wrote down on a 3”X 3” post-it, which was lying on my study table:
I am a learner and a contributor to the rejuvenation of the human spirit.
