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Kelcey Cavett
Professor Diana Watkins
Comp 1 TR @ 9:00am
13 September 2018
You may never know
I’ve always heard; “never be afraid to try something new, because life gets boring when

you stay within the limits of what you already know.” More often than not people tend to let

themselves settle into a comfort zone and exclude new things. We allow ourselves to adapt to

boundaries with no expectation of growth. Too often we let fear and anxiety stop us from trying.

But, you can’t learn if you don’t try.

We retain information according to our learning styles. There are various ways to learn.

Visual, aural, verbal, physical, logical, social, and solitary. Everyone has a specific learning

style; some people are more of a physical learner while other people are visual. It depends on the

person. If you are a visual learner, you need pictures, images, and visual understanding. An aural

leaner needs music and sound. Verbal learners prefer using words, they need details. Physical

learners are hands-on; they need to use their hands. Logical learners prefer facts and logic. Social

learners need people, because being in groups increases their learning abilities. And finally,

solitary learners grasp ideas best when they are alone. If you are anything like me, you are a

physical learner. In order for me to retain information I need to physically preform the task

myself. Knowing how you learn is an advantage.

Knowing how I learn has helped me tremendously these past few months. I recently

started working at Tiger Drug, which is a local pharmacy in Stillwater. I had never had a job

before, and I was fresh out of high school. This was my first step into the real world. My first

day at Tiger Drug was overwhelming. I had so much information that I had to know thrown at
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me. The first few days, I was told to watch and ask questions. I was being trained by one of the

other clerks, and she wanted to show me how to do everything, never giving me a chance to

physically do it myself. This was a challenge for me since I learn best hands-on. I was stuck. She

wanted me to learn all my tasks visually, but that’s not how I learn. So, I made myself try to

learn visually. I diligently paid attention as she demonstrated each task. After a few days of effort

and many questions, I still wasn’t retaining the information I needed to know. Eventually, I got

to work hands-on. That’s when I really started to learn, and the job got much easier. But, I also

learned many things in the process of trying to learn visually that I wouldn’t have learned if I

didn’t try.

Trying and failing is better than never trying. Often, people give up because they are too

afraid to fail. Many people will never try learning something different because they assume it’s

too difficult and challenging. We always assume we know how things will turn out, but

truthfully, you’ll never know until you try it. Yes, you take a chance at failing but failing is better

than not knowing. Once we decide to step out and try learning something new, even if we fail,

we can still learn a valuable lesson from it. When we fail at learning something new, we still

learn how not to do it, or even how we can change what we did to complete the task correctly.

One personal experience I have had with this is learning how to drive a standard vehicle. For the

longest time my fiancé has tried to get me to learn how to drive a standard vehicle, but I

wouldn’t let him teach me because I was scared to fail. Finally, one day I decided to let him

teach me. The first few times I failed and killed it, but after a few tries, I got the hang of it and

before I knew it I was driving like a professional. I let the fear of failure scare me at first, but

once I got past that I was able to learn a valuable skill that I can use for the rest of my life.
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If you’re not willing to try, you’ll never learn. No matter how you learn, you always have

room for improving or discovering new ways to retain information. Once you know how you

learn it’ll be more beneficial for you to learn new things. But one major key to learning new

things is trying. If you’re too afraid to try, you’ll never learn. You’ll never know the usefulness

of trying something new until you attempt it. Try something new today.