“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
Learning is a never-ending process, as long as you live, you will continue learning. Learning is much more than being literate, it means understanding what is put before you, drinking it in, soaking in the knowledge. In an ever-changing world, the importance of learning cannot be overstated.
Today, the world is quite different from what it was a century ago – nay, it is even quite different from what it was a decade ago. Change is the name of the game, and in such a world, we must now continuously adapt to our own innovations and inventions and the reworking of society. Learning, thus, is an important tool, perhaps more so than ever before in history.
Learning goes beyond just studying lessons in schools and colleges or remembering facts and trivial details. It is an all-encompassing understanding of your subject, so that you can become an essential part of the world before you and contribute to its healthy development.
We have come a long way since the dark ages, when superstitions ran rampant and numerous women were burnt at the stake for being witches, from a time when people hated each other merely based on their skin colour or their different religions – wait, this is still being followed, sadly, but despite it, we have evolved and changed with time, become more tolerant of each other’s differences and understood that we are all human. We have given up long held superstitions and started thinking rationally, bringing about an age of reasoning driven by logic, pushing the world into a stage of technological and scientific development unprecedented in human history. And all of this has been possible because we have learnt from our mistakes, because we have been willing to right old wrongs and look forward to ushering in a new era of progress and development.
You need to continuously be learning and evolving to adapt to the world and its changes so that you can play a role in the way it is shaped, to make sure that it is moulded in the right way, towards a brighter future, one full of equality and harmony.
Beyond that, learning is essential even for personal growth. From managers to doctors, to media professionals, to businessmen and politicians, and even to teachers, if you want to be at the top of your field, then you continuously need to keep track of the many improvements and changes in the field. You need to be among the decision-makers and opinion leaders if you are to shape your field and the world in the way that you want, and for that, you need to learn not only from your books and researches, but also from mentors, from past failures, from the experiences of those who have come before you, and from the your rivals as well.
We have been successful in ushering in the technological age, but with the aid of learning, understanding, and harmonious togetherness, we can bring in a new era, a golden age for humanity, one where we can proudly call ourselves human.
And for that to happen, we need to continuously keep learning and reworking ourselves. After all, stagnation can only lead to regression, and that is a quagmire best avoided. Awaken the spirit of passionate learning and let ignited minds change the world.
