A recent post to the Jack’s Winning Words blog had this quote that I liked immediately.
“The most compelling reason to get a good education is that it makes the inside of your head an interesting place to spend the rest of your life.” (Judith Shapiro)
While I agree with Shapiro, I might have phrased it thus – “The most compelling reason to always continue learning is that it make the inside of your head an interesting place to spend the rest of your life.”
When we think of getting an education, we most often think about our school years – the time when we were focused upon learning above all else. All to soon the demands of life to make a living, first for yourself and then for your family, become our focus and learning new things unrelated to that focus almost always takes a backseat. Even the most challenging of jobs can eventually become routine and boring. Sometimes that makes the inside of our heads a boring place, too.
That is why it is so important to stay curious about new things and new people in your life…to continue learning. When one stops learning their mind stops growing and the world may start to feel like it is shrinking and closing in on them. The brain loves exploring, organizing and storing new information and relating it to information that is already there. Your brain can get bored and atrophy if you stop challenging it with new experiences and learning.
So, make the inside of your head an interesting place to spend time by making a conscious effort to learn something new each day. Read something new. Try somethings new. Meet someone new. At the end of the day think about that new learning and figure out where it fits into the stuff that was already in your head. Process it and find it’s spot in your mind. It doesn’t just have to be a new fact. Maybe it was a new feeling that you had during the day or a new reaction to something that occurred.
You’ve got the rest of your life to spend inside that head; make it an interesting place to be – keep learning.
Posted by Norm Werner 
that. If only I had said something. If only I had introduced myself. If only…
So summon up the courage to try this week. Finally say hello to that person that you cross paths with every day and have always wanted to meet. Try somewhere new for lunch, maybe that little place that you have always wondered about trying. Take advantage of that free trial offer at the gym to see how working out might be for you. Accept that invitation that you’ve always turned down to join in an activity at your church or in your community. The key is doing it and not just thinking about it.
open mind (open to learning new things), we can continue to learn and add to our bank account of knowledge until our last day. One can, and must, keep a sense of wonder about the things and people around us to keep learning. How do things work? Why do things happen? Who is that person and what can I learn from them? We must keep inquiring, questioning and wondering all of our lives in order to keep the bank accounts open. “There are few things more pathetic than those who have lost their curiosity and sense of adventure, and who no longer care to learn.” ― Gordon B. Hinckley.
of one’s mind, rather than the money accumulated in regular banks. In the financial world there is the concept of compounding (interest earning interest) and in the bank of one’s mind there is the concept of wisdom. The interest that one earns on all of that accumulated knowledge is called wisdom. Instead of just drawing on what you learned as a student in school, heed this advice from Albert Einstein – “Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
So, keep your mind open to learning, to acquiring new knowledge and new ideas and view them as deposits into your mind’s knowledge bank. It is a wise man indeed who never stops making deposits in his bank of knowledge. Henry Ford hit upon another reason to keep learning – “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” 
resistance is the key to building muscle (to increased strength and growth). In life, too, the twisting path or detours offer the type of resistance that allows us to get stronger and grow as human beings. We learn little from the straight and easy paths in life.
Indeed it is the unexpected nature of those detours that prevent us from planning ahead for them. We can, however, be better prepared mentally for dealing with them. Perhaps it will take us a few moments of reflection to calm down and accept that life has taken yet another turn and that we must do something other than panic about it. In many cases the bend that life may have just taken you around can be very enjoyable. Some of the best times in my life were not the result of planning, but rather just happenstance – another detour that life took me on. I’m sure that all of us can recall some unplanned, but enjoyable event or place that we visited. Those were some of life’s little detours.
that you try will result in success. The secret is figuring out how to use this resistance that life throws at you to grow and get stronger and the key to that is keeping a positive attitude about life. You can start on that by taking to heart this little saying by Joel Osten –
“I’ve come to realize that the detours can be the best part of the journey.” ( Jack Freed)
different from where you were looking and they all carry different information and different points of view. Haven’t you ever wondered how things look from their perspective? If you encounter people with backgrounds that vary greatly from yours, maybe an immigrant or a person from a different ethnic group, haven’t you ever been curious how much different their take is on things than yours? Did you ever ask? What did you learn from that? It’s OK to start from the position of “I don’t understand you”; however, it is wrong to jump from there to “and I don’t like you, or I’m afraid of you, because of that.” Why not try to use the experience to learn something about that person. You may be surprised by who they really are.
relationship with a friend or loved one. Not only can you learn problem solving techniques from each incident, but you also learn something new about yourself and about the other parties involved (and adversities almost always involve other parties). Try to make each encounter with adversity a learning experience.
point of view has merit; to them it is the perspective from which they are viewing the situation and the basis upon which they are making their decisions. Ask yourself if you
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