STUDY AS A FORM OF GROWTH

This article was written to those teenagers who think that things come from the sky – and our schools are full of them – and was published in a house organ of an English school. Our purpose was to awake young readers – though probably only occasional readers – to the imperative need to prepare for the future, because very soon they will have to face the battle of the strongest. Without the slightest pretense of having written another abominable self-help text, I am fully aware that the article is also tailored for irresponsible adults who think of enriching only materially – certainly betting in lotteries – and forget that without a cultural background the new rich man is nothing more than a rich idiot.  

Many years ago, even being nothing more than a poor player, I decided that chess would be favorite pastime.

I made arrangements with a friend to play the game every day after work so that we could enjoy, practice and improve. He was what we call “a good player”.

Every day after five, the games played out naturally and I, of course, lost all of them.

It took such a large scale and defeats became so routine that I decided it was time to change the course of my story on the board.

One day Boris – this was his name – had to travel, so we took a break of three weeks, the time it took for me to buy two or three books and start studying, devoting part of my time to the openings, part to the development and part to the end of the games.

I learned a lot from Ruy Lopez, Alekhine, Capablanca and other masters until it was time to test my new profile against my friend.

To my surprise – and his – I systematically began to win the games, some even without much difficulty. After a few defeats, Boris questioned my sudden growth in chess.

I told him what I had done and showed him the books. After explaining he scratched his head and solemnly declared that he would also begin to study.

This episode was nothing special, but it left me two lessons.

First, however much you think you know, there is always room to know a lot more, that is, we are all ignorant and the doors of knowledge are unlimited. “The only thing I know is that I know nothing”, had already said Aristotle.

Second, the more you enhance tour knowledge, the greater the chances of you becoming a winner. This happens with chess and this happens with any matter in life, including the domain of foreign languages.

Every kind of learning is primarily a matter of will.

Unlike other kinds of study – chemistry, physics, biology – that requires a lot of reading, some memorization and a good dose of patience, studying languages is more a pleasant question of being connected to the things that surround us.

For example, you learn English every day watching TV, reading billboards, enjoying shopping windows and shop fronts, listening to music, surfing the Internet or trying to understand that instruction manual for that electronic device you just purchased.

And there’s more: when you join a classroom, you practice the language with the teacher and your classmates, discover curiosities and particularities of a different culture and have fun discovering new things. In other words, you differentiate yourself from the ordinary, become a person with a more settled future, thus really becoming part of the globalized world we are living in, and are prepared to face challenges here or anywhere in the world.

We should not settle for setbacks just because others are not succeeding. What we have to do is study, regardless the form and method, to ensure our place within the competitive society in which we live.

This is how I balanced my strength with my friend Boris.