Life-long Learning: It isn’t what you think it is

Always walk through life as if

you have something new to learn

and you will. ~ Vernon Howard

 When the calendar reaches September, it is one of those moments where it also carries a broader shift. It is more than a new month. It’s a new season. And that always carries significance with it.

 And in the case of September, it’s about more than the scents and sights of fall. It’s also about something deeper. It is about learning.

But what happens when the seasons of our life take that learning beyond the classrooms of our lives?

For our younger selves, learning came with infrastructure. Someone told us what grade or level we were in, what subjects we would be studying and, quite frankly, in many cases, what books we would be reading. We were told when and where to show up. In other words, we were told what we were expected to learn next.

Once we enter our working lives, there is a certain amount of that learning scaffolding that travels with us. Only now we call it training and development. Now it’s about what we need to know and be able to do for our work.

But what if learning isn’t meant to just be prescriptive?

That has been on my mind this year especially as I have now returned to the classroom. But this time, as a teacher. And I’m finding that with that, I have also returned to being a student.

The difference is two-fold. First is that the choice of what to learn or teach is now mine. There is no specified progression that must be followed.

Second is that I am now able to learn in a way that works best for me. That brings a freedom to learning many of us never knew in our younger years.

I have always described myself as being a life-long learner. But it’s only been recently that I recognized what that actually means. It is tied directly to something else I say about myself.

I am a possibilitarian.

When I connected those two facets of myself, I saw what I had been missing.

Life-long learning isn’t a plan. It’s a mindset.

It means we walk into every situation with a desire to learn something. About ourselves, the world, any number of things. It is the essence of what it means to dwell in the idea of what is possible rather than just what we can see.

The season of life I am in now could lead me to think that there isn’t much left for me to learn that I need to know. After all, what is really left? I’m sure you can already guess my response to that. There is just as much if not more for me to learn now at 71 as there was for me at 7 or 17. Because every new season also carries new challenges and opportunities that ask us to grow and stretch.

So even if we’re past the days of buying school supplies or our back to school first day outfits, September can still be a launching pad for us to grow into what is next.

This is the question I find myself asking now:

What do I need to understand better in order to navigate the life I’m living now?

That is life-long learning.

What about you?

What is different for you in this season of your life that is calling you to learn and grow?