We’re going to talk about the importance of learning in this article.
There are around half a dozen great reasons why learning is a great idea for your development as a person. Let's get right to them.
Open Your Aperture
Let’s go back a few thousands years to when there were no huge cities, the human population was small, technology was basic, and human knowledge was limited. There was no TV and no internet. Most people spent their lives growing crops in the fields, sleeping in a basic stone house, eating an insufficient diet, paying taxes and mingling with their fellow citizens. Options were limited in all aspects.
In these times, people resorted to magic and myths and ancestral doctrines to explain their world. The world beyond the city or village boundary was threatening. Outsiders were prohibited. Differing views were deemed witchcraft, sorcery, hearsay, you name it.
Now, let’s imagine we were to represent the mind of such a person. Let’s say it was a little circle, about the width of the lens of a handheld telescope.
Let’s come back to your life. Think of your career, relationships, interests, passions, your schedule, the information you consume, your mindset, your joy for life, your openness: everything that constitutes your life and your mind.
Consider that if you’re unable to learn, your circle is comparable in size to the ancient human whose story we traced. Once you get to a certain age, you will stop expanding that little circle, and you’ll stay enclosed in it forever.
On the other hand, learning is one way to widen the aperture of this lens so that you drink in more and more of the world.
Explore Life
Life is multidimensional. It’s sprawling. There’s more out there to discover than you’ll ever imagine. And when you have knowledge of certain areas of life (fields or disciplines), you can explore them more. You can endlessly expand the lens of your telescope and get endlessly excited about life.
Self-transformation
The more we learn, the more confidence we gain in our persistence. We develop patience and tenacity, and transform ourselves and our minds, our character. We become active sculpters of our own destiny, rather than drunk Da Vincis, creating all sorts of nonsense unconsciously.
We put our mind and body to use and learn to manage ourselves as we traverse the testing terrain of learning.
We also use our knowledge in more creative ways, infusing our work with our individuality and style. Eventually we learn to break the rules or re-write them to suit us.
Our Career and Calling
Learning enables us to aim higher in life and develop or find well-paid work in fields that excite us. We can choose our own path and follow our passion instead of living for leisure and immediate pleasures.
An acquaintance of ours, who runs the site thegardensofedhen.com, took this path: she put passion first, developed serious skills in an area she loves, and is now enjoying a successful career in garden design.
Skills are what are truly valuable in the marketplace. Having skills gives us power, both professionally and personally. In the career world, focusing on skills rather than salary makes us more adaptable because we learn how to learn, sparking off a positive feedback loop. Long term, skills are what sustain our career.
Having lots of skills and being able to pick new ones up gives us more possibilities as we age, rather than less. We attract higher salaries, because by and large the more unique your skillset, the higher your salary.
The World
As we follow our deep inclinations and develop them to a high level, we create a better world. The world needs knowledge and expertise to continue evolving: we need new solutions and new brilliant minds, in all areas, whether in architecture, design, mathematics, engineering, government, sports or education.
We’re in a time when fields are being continually crossed and blended. We need to master several skills or fields to be successful. We simply can’t do this without learning.
If we want to influence a field to a considerable degree, we also need to handle politics, the public and the everchanging outlook of our field. This requires openness and a willingness to study the enormous wealth of knowledge available to us on all of these topics and learn from our experiences.
And ultimately, it’s about making our dreams a reality. Your life as it is now existed only in your imagination before. When you become a serial learner, you realise that you have the power to change yourself through sustained effort, and your field of possibilities expands exponentially.