Stop, you read the title and now you’re thinking: here comes another original to lecture you about how important it is to study, learn new things, yadda yadda yadda. And you’re exactly right, I was just getting to that.
Just kidding.
By now, you should know that I try my best not to regurgitate elementary school wall posters. Now, don’t get me wrong, those posters do carry fundamental messages that apply to everyone, including myself, even today.
Talking about school, let’s talk about what happens inside. I think we’ve all sat in a class or two and thought to ourselves, “why the heck do I need to learn this crap?” I remember sitting in some music history class for God knows which credit towards my engineering degree. I would’ve been foolish not to ask how music history plays a role in the manufacturing of plastics. The question was even more popular amongst my peers and me during our high school years. We often found ourselves sitting in random classes like World History, or Psychology wondering when this knowledge would ever play a role in our future successes. Finally, after graduating high school and getting halfway through my undergrad, the answer finally came to me. And not knowingly, I had the right answer all along. The answer was: never.
Turns out, I was asking the wrong question. High school or college was never about what we were learning, but rather the learning itself. I’ve now come to realize that it was the learning itself that was more empowering than the material being taught. Now, I’m not saying that the material taught in college courses is worthless. I just believe that acquiring the skill of learning via college is much more valuable than the actual substance of information learned. For example, I don’t believe a good SAT score or high GPA necessarily means you know a lot, it just means you have the ability to learn well.
When a muscle is exercised and put under enough consistent stress over time, it’s able to lift more, move faster, and do so more easily. Similarly, when you exercise the mind, it grows to absorb quickly, learn more, and do so more effortlessly. Simply put: the more you learn, the better at learning you get. I also believe learning encourages you to become a better thinker which in turn enhances your creativity. For all you who think creativity is a gift…I have to disagree on this one. For me, creativity is just a combination of what you know and how well you can think, both of which, can be improved.
All in all, I feel that the act of learning opens up my mind to endless possibilities while simultaneously deterring negative thought. Learning has drastically helped me come out of some very dark places in my mind. It’s kept my mind busy, but also on the right things. Furthermore, I’ve also been trying to be selective of what I allow into my mind just as I am selective about what I allow into my body. If you are what you eat, then you most definitely are what you think.
Sometimes, it’s difficult for me to directly speak about my mental health issues, especially publicly. If you haven’t noticed, I haven’t addressed them directly since my first post. I’ve actually chosen to do this on purpose. I feel like there are a ton of other outlets tackling mental health itself much better than I could. Instead, I’ve chosen to share with you guys how I cope with it and strive to conquer my mental health on a day-to-day basis. Learning is one way I keep myself fresh and keep myself going. Hope you guys enjoyed this post about a particularly boring topic!
Thank you for checking this blog out! Lot’s of folks have been wondering how they can be notified each time there’s a new post. Honestly, I don’t really know…I think there’s a follow button where you enter your email. What I can tell you is that I plan to post every Tuesday & Friday from here on out so stay tuned!
As always: you can reach me @pjkingh.
the Kingh cause 