Personal Development
What was your first thought this morning?
“I want to be a lifelong learner.”
This was the first I woke up with one morning several weeks ago. I blinked my eyes open and smiled.
That same night I watched a TV program entitled something like “The physics of Stephen Hawking.” It’s true that I did learn several new things. (Did you know that although he’s probably the best known physicist in America, perhaps the world, he’s not very respected in the physics community? Fascinating.) But, is watching a TV show on some random topic really what it means to be a lifelong learner?
As silly as it sounds, I think it’s a start.
How else can I quench my thirst for learning? Grad school? (I’m considering it.) More reading? (I have co-worker who snorts every time I start a sentence with, “I read an article about that this morning that said…”) More blogging? (I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers. And, in my short blogging life, I feel like I’ve already grown in my learning and understanding.) More traveling? (I’m all about it!)
To be honest, I think most of us already are life-long learners. I guess it’s just a matter of how far you want to take it.
Personally, I want to take it far. I want to know everything (well, everything on certain topics, at least). I want to travel. I want to read. I want to study. I want to be an expert.
I want to be a lifelong learner.
Discussion
2 comments for “What was your first thought this morning?”
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What a wonderful post! I consider myself a life-long learner, and have for a long time. I majored in History in college, but that didn’t stop me from taking classes on art, environmentalism, philosophy, and religion. My first job out of school was in a physics department, and I made it a point to talk to the researchers and learn what they were doing. In my development careers I met with students and faculty that I saw as sources of learning. And of course there are books. I read history, novels, classic literature, and many magazines from the New Yorker to Yoga Journal. Nytimes.com is the most visited page in my browser. Try picking through Arts and Letters Daily.
I could go on and on and on… shoot me an email if you want to chat.
Kate, sounds like you’ve got a much better handle on this “lifelong learning” thing. Active learning seems like such an important way to enrich life.