Examining Examples

The phrase, “I’m going to make an example out of you,” carries a negative connotation. It typically means someone in authority is going to punish a person harshly so that onlookers learn a lesson from the incident and don’t fall into the same trouble. Yes, examples have a powerful effect on those who pay attention to them.

In all actuality, though, bad examples like that aren’t the only examples that can teach us lessons. From the time we’re little children, we’re constantly absorbing examples around us, and that’s how we acquire a lot of our developmental skills. We learn language from our parents and those close to us, and if they’re bilingual, chances are we will be, too. We pick up so many attributes and habits just from studying their examples, and those traits often stick with us for our entire lives.

Kids who have a good relationship with those who raise them tend to say things like, “I want to do it like Daddy,” or “Mommy taught me this!” Then, they go as far as to mimic the way their mentor performed a task, to the best of their ability, at least. Even later in life, we likely catch ourselves doing something, and if we really analyze our reason for doing it, it can just be due to growing up with it common in our household.

Is this a bad thing, indicating that we’re simply products of our upbringing? Does it suggest that we can’t be our own person?

At a certain point in our lives—a lot of times, during the teenage and young adult years—we want to shed the qualities we picked up or inherited from our parents, even if we love them. For most young people, it’s an insult to tell them, “You remind me of your mom/dad!” We crave the opportunity to make our own identity, away from the normal confines of our family. We might even adopt different ways and tastes in order to establish our individuality.

As I highlighted in The Ultimate Rooting Section, most parents expect and welcome this change. It’s a vital part of the growing process, as we weren’t designed to be mere clones of one another. In fact, they gradually start to pick up some of our characteristics and tendencies, discovering a different type of music or activity from us or learning a skill we mastered, if only to bond with us.

Examples come from a myriad of sources throughout our lifetime, both good and bad. We garner tips from others about products to use and techniques of doing activities, and they can stick with us whether that person is still a part of our lives or not. History also teaches us many lessons, from people who died long before we were born.

How can such examples benefit us?

Besides teaching us lessons that can save us hassle, examples connect us. When we do a task the way someone else showed us, we reflect on what that individual meant to us. Perhaps it’s not the most efficient, modern, or convenient way to accomplish the objective, but it can take us back in time to our moments with our mentor. They may be gone because of passing away or are on another path, but we can still relive that part of the past by following that example.

Along with that, examples ground us, reminding us we don’t know everything. Everyone has their own set of talents and gifts, and it’s a waste to close ourselves off to the wisdom other people have to offer. Nobody comes fully assembled, with everything figured out. True, the guidance or example they give us may not always be the course we choose to follow, but their input can still serve us well.

Of course, we need to be balanced with examples, not trying to copy everything somebody does to a tee. We’re also bound to discover our own knacks of one sort or another, possibly setting the example for others. Like a treasured recipe, our example and the ones we follow can last for generations, being tweaked here and there but always leaving a warm feeling in the heart.