Never Stop Learning
By Tana M. Mann Easton, Lead Efficiency Engineer
This week’s blog post continues our series on living the sage advice now. Another piece of guidance that our elders often give is, “Never stop learning.” It keeps life interesting and your mind agile.
I listen to Ed Mylett’s podcast, and he sometimes tells the story of a conversation he had with a stranger at a gas station. He was talking to the stranger about his young son. And the stranger told him to enjoy his child at that age because he will change so much in the next year. And Ed wondered, when did that stop for you? Why is it that as adults, when we’re out of school, we assume that we’re done learning? Ed talks about how he always wants to keep learning and growing and making himself marvel at how much he still changes every year.
This story of Ed’s was a real AHA moment for me. I’ve always been interested in reading and learning new things, but this story of his put some gasoline on that fire. So I started out by making a list of things that seem interesting to me but I haven’t learned yet. Essentially I was mapping out the future curriculum of Tana University that day.
Each year, I try to have one bigger/harder/more time-consuming thing that I try to learn more about. Last year I dipped my toe into gardening (I planted two plants last year and plan to add one new plant each subsequent year). This year I’m learning to play a musical instrument (I watch YouTube tutorials to learn the basics and practice at least 10 minutes a day).
Each week, I work on memorizing information that I find interesting. It started simply with memorizing the 6 most important phone numbers in my life. Then it moved to state capitals of the United States, then to the Presidents of the United States, then countries of the world, then Vice Presidents of the United States, then the alphabet in sign language, then the alphabet in Morse code, and so on. I started with the phone numbers, working on memorizing them once a week. When that information seemed like it was really in my brain, I changed the cadence of quizzing myself on the phone numbers to once a month (in order to encourage retention) and went onto my next weekly memorization adventure. I then chunked that subject up into manageable portions to memorize each week until I had all of those firmly in my brain, changed my quizzing on that subject to once a month, and moved onto my next challenge.
Podcasts are a source of much knowledge at Tana University. I have the ability to bring in multiple guest lecturers every day of the week simply by utilizing the free medium of podcasts, which I often do while I’m exercising.
And then there’s reading. Almost every day I’m reading or listening to audio books. Public libraries have been an amazing source of material in this part of the Tana U curriculum. I’ve checked out scores of audio books on CD’s that I’ve listened to in my car on my commute to and from work. There are of course traditional hard copy books to take home. And many libraries, including my current one, now utilize an app called Libby. I love Libby. It was easy to sign up with my library card, and now I have access to almost all of the books that I have on my to read wish list directly from my phone. Many of these books have audio options too (which you can listen to at up to 3x speed if you desire). And all of this is free! I love public libraries.
Are there any subjects you want to learn more about or skills you want to master? We don’t have to stop learning just because we’re adults and out of school. We can set the curriculum of our own choosing at any time in our lives. Learning new things makes me feel alive and engaged with my mind and the world. With so many free resources at our disposal, how different will you be next year?
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Studiously Yours,
Focus to Evolve Team