Every Which Way

The little idiom, "every which way," can certainly be used properly when applied to the learning process. That is, there are various approaches to the subject. One can learn by instruction, experience, or choose not to learn at all. I refer to them as the easy way, the hard way, and no way. 

It is a popular saying, but an incorrect one, that experience is the best teacher. NO! Instruction is the best educator. Ask the little boy who laid his hand on a red-hot stove after being told what the results would be. Sorry to say, most of us go the little urchin's route, and we have the scars to prove it.

The wise man wrote both Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, the former being the book of instruction, the latter, the book of experience. This man of wisdom had tried them both and repeatedly tells us in the first book (Proverbs), instruction far outweighs the painful way of the second.

Timothy is a good Bible illustration of learning from instruction. He didn't have to carry any regretful scars through life. Simon Peter, on the other hand, learned the hard way from a rough and tough teacher: experience. And as a result, although freely forgiven, carried a marked-up life to his grave.

I would be amiss in not mentioning the fact, some never learn at all, whether it be instruction or experience. Pharaoh, for example, was both instructed and had humiliating experiences, yet never learned a thing. What a pitiful portrait of a human being!