Right from birth and throughout the life of an individual, they will continue with the process of learning. When a baby is born, the memory and brain is almost blank and that is why it is called "Tabula Rasa". What this means is that all other things that the baby will know as they grow up will be learned, and most of these will be by imitation and interaction. This goes to prove that the learning process is initiated at birth, it is continuous, and it only terminates at demise.
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What you need to become better than you are is to learn new things. Everything around you and everyone you meet can be a potential source of learning. You will be surprised that the person that possesses the particular knowledge you seek may not be who you expect, it might even be someone you consider lower than your status. This is why you have to look beyond the vessel and look at the content, because even earthen vessels can hold treasures.
There are things that I know in my field that were taught me by people that are far younger than me. For everyone you meet, there is a lesson you can draw from them. Just to let you know, there is no single individual that possesses the entire knowledge-base in the world. As a matter of fact, the more you learn and the more you increase on your knowledge, the more you realise that you had known very little all these while.
Your relevance in this world is a direct function of your knowledge, and this is also a result of continuous learning. Imagine someone that has learnt the manual typewriter extensively during the last 2 decades but has not upgraded his knowledge to computers. In the era where computers have almost replaced typewriter, the knowledge will become obsolete. You see, when you stop learning, obsoletion sets in. In order to keep adding value, you need to keep investing in yourself through learning new things and consolidating on the old ones.
You should not be dependent only on what you are taught in the school, you need to go beyond it to gather other relevant information. Learning is without recourse to the number of certificates you have. Okay in this era, what skill can you confidently boast of that you have learnt? What people need to understand is that when some big companies do recruitment for example, they focus more on what you know instead of what certificates you have. This is why, when learning, it should not be limited to your particular course or field of study.
If everything that you have learnt is centered on just your field of study without having other external knowledge, then your knowledge-base is very limited and your relevance is already at a serious risk. To have an edge in this insanely competitive and ever-advancing world, you need to go for extra knowledge, that is, know what your contemporaries do not. This is why continuous learning is compulsory if relevance is your goal.
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One thing that deters many people from learning is assumption. Instead of assuming about something, try to ask questions and learn because you could easily go wrong with assumptions. More so, try not to live only inside your own world, interact with people to learn more.
Thanks for reading
