People tend to differ between “theory” and “practice”, and there’s this belief that too many theories will hold us back from the real experience of practice. What they don’t realize is, philosophically, theory and practice are the same.

Theory VS Practice: The Philosophy

Before people can come up with a theory, they have something called “proposition”. It is a guess whether a phenomenon is caused by certain factor, like whether the Earth is round. Proposition then becomes hypothesis which will be tested to prove the fact.

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This is the part where the practice comes. When we are testing a hypothesis, we are actually doing a “practice”. When Christopher Columbus sailed the sea to prove his proposition that the Earth is actually round (and not flat like everybody at his time believes), he was actually doing a “practice”.

This “practice” results in a conclusion called “thesis”. The collection of thesis then becomes something we call “theory”.

Theory VS Practice: The Application

There are at least two relationships between theory and practice:

1. We use theory as a guideline for us to do practice
2. We do practice to create a theory

So, basically, the first and second relationship creates an uninterrupted circle. We need theory for practice and we need practice to come up with a theory. Some people, especially those who learn in school, tend to apply the first relationship. They learn as many theories as possible, so when they start practicing, they will not be that clueless. Some people–who seem to agree with Richard Branson’s suggestion “Screw it! Let’s do it!”—choose to jump off into practice and later will make their own theory from their experiences.

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Neither approach is wrong, but what I am proposing is, if you can make things better by using both approaches, why not?

Not everyone in this world is blessed with such intuition and sensitivity to be an autodidact or to be those who can understand a phenomenon simply with observation. Most people in this world are not the fearless type who can jump off into practice immediately (that’s why there are only few college dropouts who actually become billionaires).

Baca juga: Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect

So, if you don’t have the confidence of Steve Jobs or the brain of Bill Gates, do not worry. You can do these things:

1. Learn theory. And theory is not just learned in school. You can read popular books or ask the experts.
2. Start the practice. If you’re stuck in no. 1 you are a considered a loser, and there is no cure for loser beside a practice.
3. If you happen to succeed, then congratulations! It means the theory works. But if you don’t, then you don’t need to go back to zero because you have theories. Just go back and find another theory or another approach.
4. After you practice for a while, eventually you would come up with a theory of your own, that results from you combining an old theory with your own experience. Now that is original.

So the conclusion is: No, too many theories will not hold you back from the real experience of practice. The only thing that will hold you back is you if you are afraid of practicing. If you can use both theory and practice for a better and faster success, why not?

header image credit: sportsartbyadam.blogspot.com