I like to learn. I think most of us do when the learning is of our choice.
Learning might be our reason for being here.
Learning is truly, truly fundamental when it comes to personal growth. It fosters critical thinking, enabling us to do a lot of different things. Like analyzing situations, solving problems, and making informed decisions.
Through learning, we acquire skills. Skills of all kinds. And these things enhance our capabilities. Learning opens up new opportunities.
Another great thing about learning is that it promotes empathy by exposing us to diverse perspectives. It helps us understand and appreciate differences. All of this is beautiful and good.
And yet.
Sometimes, life forces us to learn things that we don’t particularly want to learn.
I’m not really talking about piano lessons when you were nine years old. Or water skiing on that one family vacation when it sort of felt like you were getting waterboarded.
No. Sometimes, the learning will barge in when we least expect it. And typically, those lessons raise some sort of emotional issue.
For example, when we have to sign the papers for a divorce.
Or when we stand in front of the coffin of a best friend.
Those are the lessons that carve out a little piece of our hearts. Or, in some cases, a huge piece.
But then, somehow, we learn again.
We learn how to recover. And while we may get better on the outside, a part of us on the inside has changed forever.
And we go on. And we learn again.
The next time maybe something fun.
Like learning a new ice cream flavor from Ben & Jerry’s.
Or learning we just won the grand prize in the church raffle.
Or learning that the average mouse eats about five grams of food a day.
Or.
Learning another new flavor from Ben & Jerry’s.
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“Learn as if you were to live forever.” — Mahatma Gandhi
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“I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.” — Galileo Galilei
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“Learning never exhausts the mind.” — Leonardo da Vinci
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The learning of those one things.
