Learning

I was raised in American schools, which deserve their poor reputation for providing a good education. Not to say I felt mine was awful, it just had a looot of room for improvement. The thing about entering a structured learning environment from the age of 6 is that the vast majority of your life experience with learning is tainted by the context of school. You don’t choose what you learn or when, nor for how long. You have to perform in order to get good grades, which you can do without learning very much at all (trust me on that one). And the teachers are underpaid and tasked with the responsibility of watching over way too many kids for so many hours a week. And if you go to a small school like I did, your options for extracurricular classes, sports, and clubs are really limited.

I used the word “tainted” earlier because inherently, learning comes from a place of curiosity and an interest in attaining greater abilities. And it’s so fun to pursue within your own time and from your own interest! It took me a long time to understand how cool it is. Hopefully not everyone was as affected as me, but the whole education system put me off from learning things on my own for a long ass time. I had had enough of “learning” and I wanted to do things that take less effort in my down time. Turns out I was missing the excitement that comes with learning. Learning a new language, for instance, is something I could do all day. Exploring psychology or training in a sport or martial art is so far from my experiences in school it astounds me. It speaks to a greater truth of life that your own interest or curiosity will take you further than so many other motivators. At its core, learning is exciting and empowering.

I struggle a lot with wanting (or even needing) to be good at something right away. This has stopped me from starting or continuing a lot of things over the years. It’s on my mind a lot. I’m trying to unlearn that and teach myself to focus more on my desire to learn despite the inner resistance. Thankfully, I’m noticing that every positive experience I have brings me a little closer to ignoring that voice of self-judgment. I consider myself a curious person who likes collecting knowledge. I don’t always live up to that. Which is normal and realistic, I just have trouble seeing it that way. If I could I would be the person to jump into every opportunity to expand my understanding of the world around me. The context of my day-to-day says no, definitely not always. I get tired, hungry, busy, sad, and so on. I tend towards black-and-white thinking, and so holding space for this inconsistency in my behavior without making it mean something about who I am is hard. But not impossible like it used to be.

This started as a piece about learning and feels like it’s more about allowing myself to exist as I am. But it is another thing I’m learning to do! So HAH! On that note actually, learning to be yourself and accept yourself is one of the most important things you can do, ever. It doesn’t come off as a typical skill, but it can be practiced. I’d like to think I’m doing that a bit here as I write. Repetition is the mother of learning, after all. And I’ll say it again: learning is exciting and empowering. There’s nothing else like it. And I really like it.