Do You Know It All

The real anomaly is that old dogs don't necessarily want to learn new tricks, or they don't want to learn some new tricks because those that are doing the teaching were once their students. Some of this attitude may be one of self-confidence, or it may be that we have forgotten that "we don't know it all", and never will.

Maybe, there is also the question mark whether some of us can muster enough brain cells to learn some new tricks.

What all of this really says, however, is that we should always be open to learn, and to use that parlance often used in corporate worlds, we have to engage in continuous learning. These words, though, are sometimes easier to say than to allow us to openly grasp them with vigour. Is it that we have forgotten how to learn, or is it simply that we think that age and life experience allows us to somehow skip over this aspect of life?

Sometimes, familiarity breeds the notion that we can carry on as we always have. Or, often we assume that skills and knowledge once tested on a daily or weekly basis by an uninviting environment, need not be tested any longer because of more friendly atmospheres or more forgiving colleagues.

The real truth, of course, is that there is no final plateau one reaches that gives one the leg up, so to speak, on anyone else or on any given situation or challenge.

Life continues to evolve every second; our knowledge needs to be caressed, re-built, added to, and multiplied less we find ourselves slipping further down the slope that sees us less than adequate, less than needed, or less than valued. As life evolves so should we on a continuous basis.

The important part of developing a continuous learning cycle is that you can keep those brain cells active. Studies have shown that to exercise the brain is also good for the rest of your body. It is also part of staving off dementia. This is not to say that there isn’t pleasure received from learning something new. It is also an adventure that can take place with the aid of some very good books, or now on the Internet where information you want about almost anything is readily available.

There is an interesting point about learning that not many talk about and that is the ability to bring building blocks of knowledge up to the forefront of your mind where they can be build even stronger and wider. This is a learning process where you can take an experience that happened many years ago and adds to it by using it as a stepping-stone to further learning.

There is another advantage to continuous learning especially if you are a parent with children. The responsibility of a parent is many and part of that responsibility is to set a model for your children. Part of this model is to demonstrate that learning is not only fun, but that it is something that, you as a parent, also engage in. You can demonstrate this by reading a book in front of your child or children when they are doing their homework, and when they are finished doing what they have to, take a few minutes and tell them what you just learned from what you read. In this case, you should read more than just a novel; it preferably should be a non-fiction book. The non-fiction book should give you plenty to talk about. This can be an autobiography of an important person in your own country, or it can be a book that is on a subject that you like and want to learn more at any rate.