July 29, 2021

BECOMING A LIFE LONG LEARNER

Read Time: 2 mins 30 secs

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. – Confucius

Quite surprisingly we are living in an era where education is being misunderstood with learning. This results in producing more depressed and unproductive population.

According to a study few years ago, around 30% of world population is suffering from some kind of mental disorders.

Shocking right? Anyways, it has some direct connection when one fails to LEARN!

Learning is the acquisition of knowledge or skills through study, experience or being taught. It is a complex subject perhaps the best way by which you can keep yourself going in life is – LEARNING

You want to be better learner? Some aspects which comes to learning are:

Listening
Communication
Connecting

One of the most engrossing thing about learning is that it will be LIFELONG. People just learn things which are in their text books, taught by their parents friends or teachers… they stop learning once they get a job or start earning decent money and therefore remain stagnant throughout their entire life.

But I think real meaningful learning starts behind all these. Limiting yourself to only text books and some people will limit your profoundness of life. Learning is about strong power of observation.

UNLEARNING – important aspect of learning

Unlearning is a process to realize that something which we have already learnt is irrelevant, incomplete or may be totally and managing changes according to the need in given situation.

Unlearning begins when the situations keep changing. Everything we learn and was useful in one context or situation become less useful when shifted to another context. So when context changes we have to Unlearn!

Adaptation is the only way to unlearn. The person who adapt to changing environment and keeps on learning new things by keeping aside all the other earlier achievements which is not relevant will go long way in life!

Let me narrate a beautiful story for a better understanding:

A very bright student in Japan come to a zen master. With a lot of pride and excitement, student tells to master that he has travelled all along the world, studied all the religions and master all philosophy in the world and now wanted to learn Zen.

Student say: master, teach me everything about ZEN! I want to be a master of it.

The master does not respond and put an empty tea cup in front of him and starts pouring…. Soon the tea cup fills and tea starts filling on the table but master keep on pouring.

Getting disturbed by this scenario, the student yelled at master and said: Master stop pouring the tea! The tea cup is already full!!

Master gently smile. Stop pouring the tea and looks at the student smiling and said: LIKE THIS CUP YOUR MIND IS ALSO FULL. HOW CAN I TEACH YOU ZEN WHEN YOUR MIND IS ALREADY FULL.

So we cannot learn better or faster unless you empty your cup or LEARN TO UNLEARN!