Describe a useful skill you learned from an older person
You should say:
- What it is
- Why the skill can be learned from older people
- How you have learned the skill from older people
- And explain how you will feel if you master the skill
Sample Answer
It’s my pleasure to tell you about a practical skill I have learned from a friend who is much older than me.
I have an American friend whose name is George and he is much older than me. I would say he is around the same age as my mother but he is the one I can trust the most in this world for his experience and understanding. He and I have been practicing this skill naturally through our daily conversations.
To say a bit about this skill, it is to keep on questioning our knowledge and never stop searching for as many answers from as many sources as possible. Besides, once we have got enough knowledge and information about something, we shouldn’t quickly jump to a conclusion and believe it is the only truth but listen to others while they express their ideas and learn something from that too.
This skill, in fact, is often mastered by older people who have gone through all the ups and downs in life and who have made so many mistakes in their youth. Indeed, their hard and tough experiences are somehow our easy and soft lessons for us though I know we, the young, are quite stubborn.
Talking about the way I have been learning this skill, I’d like to say that it’s thanks to my daily chat with George. Honestly, he is my life mentor, which keeps our relationship stress-free if compared to the relationship between me and my parents or that of me and my boyfriends. Every day, we share and keep each other updated about life and work. I tell everything that happens to me in a day and he does so too. But more importantly, we speak out our feelings about something like a book we have read, a new date we have been flirting with, and then pose constructive questions to understand the matters in depth.
It would never be enough to express my thankfulness to George for having been practicing this skill naturally with me. Thanks to him, I am now open to a new horizon where I can explain, learn and accept all the information or ideas I receive from books, news, social media, and friends. Besides, whenever I hear some negative opinions about myself, I can remain calm and ask myself whether that is true or not, and if there is a problem, I will immediately find a solution instead of letting my emotions take the lead. Last but not least, this skill also has taught me to empathize with other people and understand the mechanism behind what they do so that I can stop cursing or judging them.
Therefore, those are the reasons why I choose to talk about George and his precious lessons in this part. I believe I will keep on learning and never stop searching for the answers for all my life’s issues. It may take my whole life to do so but I am too intrigued to stop.
