Many of us, when we get to a certain age, get tired of learning new things. We feel that we already went to school and had to learn things that we didn’t want to learn, and well,……we just don’t want to learn anything else.

The rest of us, when we get to be seniors, we feel that we have had to learn so much in life, we just want to retire and coast. We sort of resent having to learn new things or keep up with the latest gadgets, websites and technology. We may say, “Why are they doing this to me? Haven’t I learned enough in life? What was wrong with the old way that I used to do this?” These are all good questions, but what this type of thinking does, is to create an emotional anchor that we drop and refuse to move on with the rest of the world.

Moses & the rock

You see, things are always changing. Moses, in the bible was told that if he struck a rock with his staff that water would come gushing out to quench the thirst of the Israelites. When the Israelites needed more water, he went and struck the rock once again, only to be chastised by God who asked him, “Why did you strike the rock? I told you to speak to the rock.” God had told Moses to do something new, not the same thing that he was used to doing. Even in Isaiah 43, God says, “Behold, I am doing a new thing.”

Why is it as humans, we resist change? We like homeostasis so much that we miss new opportunities? I have even come to realize,

when we get to the point where we decide to stop learning new things, this is the point where we start dying. We have officially decided to get off of the bus and sit on the sidelines, allowing the world to move on, leaving us behind to wither and die.

Every morning that we arise, we are given an opportunity to learn a new thing. It may be about ourselves, the world or other people. Talking about the “good old days” is usually a reference to not enjoying our current lives, that our past is where we want to be. You see, we go through seasons in our life. It can’t always be spring. There will be winters and unless we learn how to make the most of our winters, we metaphorically decide to throw a season away. That is like throwing away 3 months of your life every year. Can you imagine throwing 25% of your life down the drain? If we complain about the present and think with fondness only to the past, we are living a miserable life.

Dream a little dream

In the book of Acts in the Bible, it states that in the last days, young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams. What is a dream anyway? For me, a dream is two things, one when your subconscious is unbridled while you sleep and the other is where you let your imagination run wild and daydream of what you would like to do, create, become or a plethora of other things. In order to make any of these dreams come true, you are going to have to learn new things. If you already know everything about what you want to do, is it really a dream anyway?

I’m not pointing a finger, I have come to realize this about myself to some degree. We are never too old to learn new things. As we get older, we should have wisdom behind us to make learning even more easy. Instead of pushing away new things, let’s embrace change and NEVER say, “I am too old to learn this.” I challenge you to wake up each day and say,

“Wow, another day, with all of my life’s experiences, what am I going to learn today?”