Learning – It’s A Lifelong Goal

Learning. It’s something that many may think only happens until you exit high school or maybe college.

Once that’s done no more education.

That’s a very narrow perspective and one I completely disagree with.

There is always so much more to keep gaining knowledge about. Quite honestly I think everyone should be a lifelong learner.

I think there are two ways to learn something. Doesn’t really matter what age you are. Passive learning and proactive learning.

I would say that passive learning is usually when you need to figure something out to complete a task. Maybe you have gotten a new cell phone and need to figure it out in order to even make a call or send a text.

Proactive learning I would say is preemptively learning about something before you might need to have to use that knowledge. This might even include what some might think is useless knowledge.

I am sure that we all know or have seen someone who crushes trivia night because they have learned vast amounts of what could be termed useless information.

Learning stimulates your brain and keeps you younger.

It doesn’t really make sense for us to only use the first years of our life to learn new things. How boring and bland life would be if our minds were only expanded until we left high school or whatever post-secondary we might have attended. And realistically much of what we learned there we have never used again.

It is really exciting to think that we have the opportunity to learn whatever we put our mind to for as many years as we are able. Well I think that’s exciting. But you might disagree.

I think it is up to us to broaden the scope of how we view taking in new information, beyond a lecture in school or memorizing a textbook for an exam. That is a pretty narrow way to view it and honestly might make most of us to never want to learn again. I was so glad to be done school when I finished it all.

There are endless things to learn about and endless ways to learn about them.

I once had a conversation with a coworker about this. We were discussing a few things, but I threw out a casual offhanded comment about how I am continuously learning things. She responded by giving me a confused and wide-eyed look.

After realizing she really didn’t understand what I meant, I questioned her about if she ever worked to learn new things and expand her mind in that way. She replied that she never does that. I did find that shocking. Never?

Upon reflection I understand that she would actually need to learn new things as a nature of going through life. I don’t think anyone could say they never learn anything. But it’s most likely an issue of perception. Also a difference in proactive learning or education as opposed to inactive or responsive learning.

So friend, as with many things this might come down to how you look at things. What is your approach to it? Your life and my life can be so much richer because of what we choose to learn and our worlds can greatly expand if we choose to learn more.

Comment below with your thoughts about continuing to learn or anything else. I would really like to hear your thoughts or your questions. Shoot me a personal message through the contact form on the site. I would love it if you like this enough to share it with others. Please SUBSCRIBE in the box above, it helps you know more of what’s going on.