Old Dog, New Tricks

Who originally said that ‘you can't teach an old dog, new tricks’? E.C Brewer, who lived between 1810 and 1897, gets credit in the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable published in 1898. I’m convinced that some form of this idiom has been around much longer though, according to some basic research that I’ve done online.

I don’t know about dogs, but gratefully, the same does not appear to be true for people. It can be difficult to change a person’s habits as they get older or get them to accept new ideas and technologies, that’s true. They can learn, if they want to.

Remember the 5.25" Floppy Discs?

Take me, for example. Before I got my first computer, I was convinced that I could never learn how to use one. I told my son that I was too old to learn how to do that (I was 36 years old at the time). With his encouragement, however, I did try. Voila! I found out that I could learn how to use a computer.

My skills and confidence grew from there. And they continue to grow to this day. Just this morning, I learned how to layer pictures in Adobe Photoshop. I went to Google, typed in the question, and found the information I needed to figure it out. And I did it all by myself! Who knew?

Here is my first attempt. I wanted to add my company logo to a colour palette I created, and I did it! I was quite pleased with myself, I must say.

In my opinion, life is a continual learning process. We should never remain stagnant and unwavering. There’s a whole world of new possibilities out there. Look around, they are not hard to find. *smile*