"There are two types of education…One should teach us how to make a living, and the other how to live."
John Adams
As I grow older, I find I love learning more than ever. It is a joy to reflect back at the end of the day and find the nugget of edification that happened during the course of the previous 12 hours. It's not always something huge, but more frequently something rather small. Yet the accumulation of all of those small gems makes me the person I am and gets me one step closer to the person I am striving to become.
Take the item I learned yesterday as an example. For some (strange) reason, my boys are currently obsessed with Celtic music. They can't get enough of it. My oldest son and I were driving in the car on the way to his football practice, listening to an interview he had recorded with two Celtic artists. During the course of the interview, the artists had a protracted discussion regarding the difference between a "tune" and a "song" in the world of Celtic music. Songs have words, tunes don't (Apple must not have known that when they named a certain piece of software). "Huh, I never knew that…" was my response to Eric.
We went on to pause the recording and have our own private discussion about "songs" vs. "tunes". This may not seem like anything big on the surface, but if you've been around an almost-sixteen year old lately, you know that getting them to truly discuss anything with you can be a major victory. So I learned something new, and I had the joy of a great discussion with my son.
Learning new life skills can help us grow both personally and professionally. Whether it's learning a new system, piece of software, or hobby, the pursuit of knowledge continues to shape both our minds and our souls. Some learning is major, some is minor – but it all counts!
Home-work for today:
- Look for opportunities in your life to grow and learn. It can be anything from a new word to a new life skill.
- Once you've learned it, make note of it. Notice your learning and what it means to you.
The Bookshelf:
Successful Lifelong Learning
Reading Room Resources:
Yale on $0 a day (and Notre Dame too!)
Get Summer Reading Recommendations Online
