The most important thing that I ever learned.

Throughout my life I learned many things to help me get along throughout life, and as with most people I learned them through life experience not from a book.  The most important thing that I ever learned I learned in Army boot camp.  The thing that I learned is that what we think is important is not necessarily what others think is important.  When I was introduced to Army boot camp I thought the most important thing in life was education and family.  I was soon to discover how wrong I was.  As I was exposed to the military life in boot camp I discovered that the sleep that I formerly thought was important was no longer important.  The shoes that I wore were just something to keep my feet covered, but I now discovered that their real purpose was to display shiny black wax.  The clothes that I previously wore were a display of my personality, but now I have learned that they are really to hide me in a crowd.  The hats that I previously wore were to keep the sun off my head, but now I know the real reason for a hat is to hold water for shaving with.  The back pack that I used to wear I thought was for holding school books, however its real purpose was to hold food and other things for camping trips.  I was under the odd impression that my body was to be used for whatever I desired to do with it.  However I learned that its real purpose was to run, do push-ups and sit-ups. I used to think that my brain was to be used to express my individual thoughts, but I now know that it is not for my own thoughts but for the thought of those who believe themselves superior to me.  These are just silly examples.

There are reasons for the things that I learned in boot camp though the reasons were not necessarily clear to me at the time.  The shiny black wax on shoes has two purposes, first to protect the shoes from wearing out early. The wax reduces the amount of water getting into the leather which would cause the leather to shrink and crack. The second and more important in the big picture is attention to detail. The effort you put into the shine on the shoes is a direct reflection on yourself.  If you are actually in a war zone however you do not put a shine on your shoes even though you do wax them.  Shiny things in a war zone are targets.  Many of the things that are done in boot camp are attention to detail items like this.  The other things that we are taught are more directly related to survival. Push-ups, sit-ups and running are fitness related so that we can endure physical hardships in time of war. There is other physical training that is related to being limber and health in general, such as staying hydrated.  If a person does not stay hydrated everything else falls apart, both the mental and physical. With all the physical activity a person can be severely injured due to a lack of water as the joints of the body require fluid to work properly.  There is a third set of things that we learn in boot camp, and this is related to mental discipline.  The mental discipline is related to both the physical health and the attention to detail.  Having the proper mental discipline allows a person to continue going even when the body is fatigued, is in pain or when the person encounters a difficult task.  Many of the challenges of boot camp are mental and having completed those challenges one time makes it nearly pointless to go through boot camp a second time.  I attended boot camp twice.  The first time was for the Army, and when I changed military services to the Navy 5 years later and had to go through boot camp again the only purpose it served me was learning the navy ranking system.  The mental games that are played in boot camp only work once and are more of an inconvenience the second time around than anything else.  The physical challenges were much less exerting in the Navy.  The only new challenge in the Navy training was swimming, however I passed the swimming pre-test so I was exempted from any further swimming in Navy Boot camp.

Now back to my original statement, the most important thing that I ever learned is that what we think is important is not necessarily what others think is important. All the things that I learned in boot camp were things that I did not think were important, however they were all important.  Some of the things that I learned were of relevance only in the military, but others in every aspect of my life.  I am an introvert, however I learned to live with and get along with people of varying demographics and life styles as we were all in the same boat so to speak in boot camp.  I was somewhat arrogant before I went to boot camp, but I learned humility.  I learned to work as a member of a team instead of just being an individual.  I learned to accept orders from more senior personnel and that has helped me with my current civilian job.  As you can see all of these things that I learned in boot camp while not important to me at the time were important things for me to learn and will help me throughout my life.  I learned them in spite of them not being important to me, and that is what makes my original statement true and not just for me.  The most important thing that I ever learned is that what we think is important is not necessarily what others think is important.  Those people that trained me knew that these things were important.  Everyone has things that are important to them and their experience and knowledge affect what is important.  The more experience and knowledge a person has allows them to see beyond their own desires and limitations and find new things of importance.  What I did not think was important before, I can now say is important and can share that knowledge with others.  I can also add to that my patience and understanding as I try to impart my knowledge to others.  I can explain why things are important so that whomever I am teaching can understand and not be so resistive to learning things that they do not think are important.  To boil down what I learned is that when a person does not perceive that something is of benefit to them directly they are more resistive to learning something that may be of real benefit to them.  What I learned is to try and understand why someone else thinks something is important not just reject it because I don't.  When I was young I was smart, and that made me somewhat arrogant and resistive.  I thought I knew better.  As a result of Army boot camp I gained the wisdom to understand the limitations of my knowledge and I try to impart that to my children as they resist their school work.  

Earlier I wrote that the most important thing in life was education and family.  That is still true as a lifetime view point.  In boot camp that is not true, the most important thing to learn in boot camp is how to survive.  That includes adapting to new situations, and learning to think from others perspectives.  If you don't learn that then you won't live long enough in war to benefit from a family and education.