How to Start Learning to Learn

Two quotes come from completely different eras and represent two completely different types of schools of teaching.

There is the quote from forever youthful William Yeats:

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” ― William Butler Yeats

And a more known figure that has been quoted over and over again:

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” ― Socrates

They say exactly the same thing and basically tell us what exactly is education.

What is education

I strongly believe that education in itself is one of the most important and most extensive ways to achieve anything in life.

If you need to open up a business and need to earn money from that, you won’t be able to do the first step if you don’t have some background with experience and understanding.

Yes, the experience is education as well. It is one of the best education types that there is as you pretty much unable to forget the experiences, making them sticky and one of the best mediums to store information for your whole life.

Why do they say that to learn and remember something, one has to try doing it and fail? It is because the experience of failing would make sure that the person learns the correct way to go about the problem.

What else can be categorised as education? The first things that comes to mind are books, lectures, lessons.

Those 3 are the ultimate things that are integrated into every single school right now. Usually, a sprinkle of homework to do a little self-study is added in order to balance out the supervised learning.

But let’s not forget what exactly does learning entail. Learning and education are the words that I interchange because to educate oneself, a person needs to learn how to learn.

Learning can be you having a friendly chat with a colleague in the bar. Learning can be watching a YouTube video on how the pros do those amazing trick basketball shots. Learning can be you typing a message to the friend and realising that you typed it extremely fast.

What I am trying to say that learning is not about boring books and lecture halls. Learning can be anything as long as you are getting new information and actively thinking of ways to apply it to anything. Even to the way you eat your breakfast in the morning.

Actively learning

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” ― Henry Ford

I think that there is a notion that has been going on for the past 20 years of impairing the nerds or those that are smart and are trying to become even smarter. Every movie, every series, and every book that talks about ordinary people's common life somehow always shows the geek that is always misunderstood and mistreated by others. Just think of Ross from the most popular series Friends. In the beginning, this geek is still trying to be helpful and to educate his surrounding people, but in the end, due to simply the ridicule and hopelessness of his surrounding, he gives up.

This is not a story of fiction. This is how it is in the real world, as well. The smart and those that learn continuously instead of being celebrated and acknowledged, get bullied and pressured. Those are the scientists, the doctors and the engineers. The most important, vital professionals that actually get our economy moving.

Why is this important? Because if you can find those people and show them that you are interested in what they have to say, you will be able to open for yourself the best way to get knowledge and learn in this world. Instead of doing the hard work of researching, reading and summarising, in simple meetings and talks they will share the information that will make you really wonder what the heck you were doing with your life prior.

Communication and verbal lesson sharing have been present in our lives since the time we were apes. Why not abuse our brain’s structure and how it adapted to learn the best way that is available to us?

But overall, I of course, want you to understand that overall learning is essential. Those that stop learning also stop their brain from developing and are only loosing out. Our life is turbulent, and we have no idea what will happen in a year, especially in 10 years. That is why learning and continuously and critically thinking about everything in our lives is one of the best ways to stay on top of the game.

Challenge your own beliefs, talk to people smarter than you, read the books and watch the lectures of those that you respect. You will be surprised how stupid you are compared to others. If getting smarter and continuously improving is not a lifelong goal, than what is?

Start now. Get perfect later.

Klim Y