“The love of learning is a useful gift to yourself. By learning you can constantly improve. The more you improve the more you add value”
Lorrin L. Lee
I am in peak hour traffic for a couple of hours, several times a week. I distract myself and use the time to listen to the radio or listen to audio books. When I discovered audio books, I became a little obsessed and ended up looking forward to ‘my traffic time’. These couple of hours became an opportunity for selfcare, for some me-time. More than that, it became me-time to learn.
I love learning new things. I love the awareness it brings and the curiosity it opens. I love the unexpected insights and information that arise. Curiosity, insights and information about myself, the world in which we live, its people and places.
Learning for me can happen in an instant or over a long period. Instant learnings are like little sparks of joy, they are sudden realizations when dots are finally connected. It is the moment when I understand why a quote resonates and is meaningful to me. They are the wonderful moments when I can look back on an event and understand what it means for me – the moment when I ‘get it’. Sometimes this is just a feeling, a felt knowing.
Learnings over a longer period are slow burn inquiries. They tend to be centered around a given topic. These take the shape of reading lots of books, or seeking out different bits of information from different sources on the same topic, doing online courses, online searches, library visits, conversations with people to hear their thoughts and opinions.
A quote I found by Lorrin L Lee really resonates with me; “The love of learning is a useful gift to yourself. By learning you can constantly improve. The more you improve the more you add value”.
Learning, discovery, questioning, enquiring are all expressions of self-care and self-love for me. My traffic time also gives me the time and space to be in silence and think about my learning and come to my own conclusions and opinions or, to come up with new questions and curiosities.
What does curiosity and learning mean to you? Where can you find the time in your day to give attention to the value adding selfcare opportunity for yourself.