LEARNER, LEARNER YOUR FUTURE'S ON FIRE

Peanuts cartoon:

 The character, Rerun, was hiding under a bed. Lucy asked if he's coming to school. Rerun said "no" because, he exclaimed, the teacher was sarcastic to him. The teacher had asked him if he thought he had "learned everything he needed to know." Lucy, being Lucy, queried "Well, do you think you've learned everything you need to know?" Rerun replied, "I think I've learned everything I need to know to live under a bed."

Rerun's philosophy, at this stage of his young life, appears to be, "If I'm going to live under a bed for the rest of my life, what is the sense of learning anything more? Logical, but somewhat flawed, thinking.

          Maybe today all he needs to learn is what's necessary to live "under a bed," but tomorrow he may find himself "under a dresser." Does he know how to live under a dresser, or does he only have "under the bed" skills?

 I remember many years ago attending a then live concert by the now dead Jim Croce.

 He was a gifted songwriter, minstrel, and between-songs philosopher. That evening he spoke of his college experiences and said, "During four years of college I took philosophy, psychology, sociology, all of these "ologies," and I came out totally prepared for life in the 12th century."

 If we don't learn how to learn, we will be, just as surely as the terminally inconvenienced Mr. Croce or the dust bunny covered Rerun, preparing for life under a bed in the 12th century. We will find ourselves able to function quite well in a world that has ceased to exist.

 For those who use statistics to generate personal excitement, try these: 95 percent of what we use daily is learned after we leave school. Every five years 50 percent of what we know becomes obsolete. Doesn't say much for stagnant learning does it?

 If you don't buy those statistics, and believe you have all the education you'll ever need with your high school, college or college plus degrees, try this little exercise. Dredge up the report card from your last year of formal education. See if you even remember taking a particular course, much less what was taught in that class. How would you do if you took a test today on the material you were exposed to in your last year of school?

 With the high obsolescence rate of our knowledge we obviously can't rely on "used learning." Therefore continuous learning is critical at all stages of life. But of the gabillion things there are to learn, what specifically do YOU need to learn? Selective learning is no easy task considering we have very little idea of what we should select to learn.

 No matter how well we have planned our life, our life has a life of its own and that life is full of surprises of all sizes. What do we need to learn when our spouse runs off with the circus? Didn't plan on that I bet. How about a job loss; quadruplets; lottery winning; hemorrhoids; aging?

 Learn something every day; we're never sure what we'll need to know or when we'll need to know it. It is one heck of a challenge to prepare for a life that has never been lived before.