One Nugget Per Day
No, not a chicken nugget.
A nugget of new knowledge.
During graduation season, as we are in now, we come together to celebrate the completion of certain levels of education. Be it high school or college, we see graduation as the end goal of education, a point at which we can say we have successfully amassed a certain base of knowledge and are now ready to move on to the next phase of our lives. If it is a graduation from college we often tease that the next phase is our “real” life.
The way we construct our developmental journey in the modern world, is through an early period of education, to graduation, to hopefully becoming who and what we are meant to be. We learn, then we finish learning and graduate into the world of an adult. A distinct end point for learning, however, wasn’t always the way education was conceived.
THE STOICS.
I listen to a podcast called The Daily Stoic and this morning’s short episode on This is What it Means to be a Stoic discussed how Stoics believed in life-long education.
“To be a Stoic means to be a life-long student, to know that wisdom is an endless pursuit, to believe one never arrives at a final destination.”
Even Roman Emperor, and at the time one of the most powerful men in the world, Marcus Aurelius, never stopped learning. According to The Daily Stoic, once when the Emperor was stopped and asked where he was going carrying a pile of books, he was off to a lecture and said:
“Learning is a good thing, even for one who is growing old. From Sextus the philosopher I shall learn what I do not yet know.”
For Stoics, learning was a priority throughout the lifespan.
Life is in constant flux. Humans are in constant flux. We are always changing, and there are only two ways to go in change: growth or decline. Well, perhaps a third type of change is complete transformation but that is far more radical and rare. Still, transformation could fall into either growth or decline.
We have all met them: that 76 year-old woman full of vibrancy, energy, and light who after retirement takes up ceramics, plans a trip to a new country each year, makes new friends all over the world, and is learning Swahili for fun. (Ok maybe I haven’t quite met her, but I may want to be her.). Then we have also met the 62 year-old who lives by routine, drives the same route to the same grocery store at the same time each week, eats at the same restaurant, and has the same conversation over again with the same few people in their lives. They are comfortable they say; they like the way things are. As time wears on, however, routine turns into rigidity, conversations become repetitive and unfulfilling, and life becomes smaller.
These are just made up examples, of course, and in reality people fall everywhere in between and some even somewhere more extreme. The point is nobody stays in the same place, we are always changing; we cannot stay where we are but we can decide the direction we will go.
CASE STUDY: DR. B (yes, that’s me).
As my 40th birthday approached, I had that famous Glennon Doyle moment in Untamed where Glennon thought back on her life and thought something like, “Is this all there is?” I experienced that moment before I learned Glennon Doyle (and apparently many others) also had, so at the time I thought it was just me. It wasn’t. It still isn’t.
At 40 I was feeling old, and felt I had reached the peak of my life but had hardly accomplished what I had wanted to accomplish with it. I went into full panic mode and for the next decade started trying to grab everything I could in life. I went from shy, insecure, introvert to a still insecure introvert but with a new approach to any opportunity that came my way, “Say yes, and worry about it later.” This led to new experiences, new skills, and new directions in life I never imagined I would pursue. My 40’s became a decade of transformation for me, much of it good. However, motivated in some ways by the fear of irrelevance, I now see there was a desperation to it, and anything done in desperation has a cost. It was a pursuit of doing more instead of being more and I ended up feeling exhausted.
Now I am into my 50’s. If I thought life was over in my 40’s imagine me as I approached my 50’s. I basically had a meltdown, but then a different kind of change took place. In my trying to do more phase, I had signed partnership papers with Kristine Carroll, and together we opened our fitness and wellness business, Vibe Vault FIt. A year later the pandemic hit. Like everyone else we had to pivot to a virtual world.
At this point you are perhaps asking yourself, “what does this story have to do with being a life-long learner?”
Well, here it is: when the world went online, we moved to offer virtual workshops and started to produce podcasts as well as blogs in order to continue our wellness offerings. This meant I now began spending a lot more of my time researching new topics and learning new information in the area of wellness. (I also started meditating) For the first time in a long time I began to feel FULL; I started to feel alive, vibrant, full of energy and light. I felt I was growing, expanding, and I was excited about all there was ahead for me to learn.
Perhaps most important, I stopped feeling like I was at the end of something. I also found the answer to, “Is this all there is?” It’s “hell, no!”
Instead of doing more, I have started to understand growth is being more; expanding through learning.
There is a way that learning feeds you like nothing else does. Its brain fuel; we were built to learn, we are learning machines, and without the input of new challenging stimuli, without the regeneration that comes from flexing our mental muscles in a new way, we atrophy. Our lives become smaller.
Lifelong learning does not have to mean getting another degree, or even taking another course. It can be as small as looking at something in a new way, getting a different perspective. It can mean walking down the grocery isles in a different order, having a conversation with a stranger, listening to a podcast on a topic you’ve never explored, taking a trip to a new city, trying a new fitness format (or instructor).
There are so many ways to grow. The one crucial ingredient, however, is curiosity. Curiosity is what will drive you learn more, to be open, and to be truly present. We cannot take in what’s around us otherwise. Even talking to your partner with new curiosity can lead to learning something new about them and can help expand your relationship.
Here is the thing, life-long learning doesn’t have to be demanding, it can be as simple as setting the intention to learn one new nugget of knowledge a day.
Do that and your life expands.
A LITTLE SIDE OF MEDITATION.
I threw meditation in earlier; it wasn’t a mistake. In addition to teaching us how to be present, meditation helps us develop the power to create space from our own minds; it allows us to observe rather than become hijacked by our own thoughts, emotions, and reactions. This space gains us perspective, and perspective allows us to see things in whole new light. In this way meditation alone can be a tool for thinking differently and learning new things without the need for any external input or stimuli of any kind. We just need us, our breath, and quiet.
As an added bonus, studies have found just 13 minutes of meditation a day improves attention and memory, these are key kills for learning. Heck, they are key skills for life.
SUMMARY: DR.B’S PRESCRIPTION FOR GROWTH & EXPANSION.
Prepare your mind daily though a 8-12 minute meditation.
Get curious.
Learn one new nugget of information a day.