Learning shouldn’t stop once you graduate from school. Graduating from college doesn’t mean you can no longer be a student. Life offers more lessons than school ever could. As an individual, you must constantly seek for more ways to grow. To be stagnant should never be an option for someone who has so much potential. There are always new things to learn and adventures left to be discovered.
When you choose to be a student of life, you open yourself to limitless opportunities.
1. Explore the world.
Don’t limit yourself to your hometown or to the city you got your first job. Go beyond the place you consider home, because home can be many places. It doesn’t have to be just one town or one apartment complex. Backpacking may not be for everyone, but it’s not the only way you can see the world. Travelling doesn’t just have to be going overseas but also dropping by many states. Culture exists not just in a country but even in small communities.
2. Acquire new life skills.
Maybe it’s time that you finally learn how to fix a broken faucet or even fix the faulty light in your bathroom. You can finally cross out your bucket list items that have been there forever. Learn how to drive a car or ride a bike. There are definitely things you don’t know how to do, and you have a lifetime ahead of you to learn. It’s never too late to start learning something new.
3. Widen your circle.
For some individuals, to grow older means to keep your circle of friends down to a few, but that shouldn’t stop you from meeting new people. Widen your circle by allowing people into your life and letting them get to know you. When you meet so many people and try to learn about them, you don’t merely understand the person but their circumstances as well. Widening your circle to people from all walks of life gives you a bigger and better perspective of the world. It doesn’t mean you have to treat every stranger as a potential friend, but there’s nothing wrong with that, too.
4. Support a cause.
Why not try to turn your passion for animals into a good cause? Learning more about animal welfare can tell you which cosmetic brands support testing on animals. Making your love for books into an advocacy can tell you that many areas lack a library and they need your support. You don’t have to force yourself to support something you don’t believe in. You only need to look at your interests and see which ones need you take some drastic actions.
5 .Take risks.
The first step to learning is accepting that you’re prone to make mistakes. Once you’ve accepted that, you’ll have an easier time taking in things and risking everything in favor of your passion. Keeping your 9-to-5 job may keep you secure, but if you’re bored and no longer happy, is it really happy? Submitting an article to your favorite publication in the world may mean rejection, but it can also mean getting published! Stop hesitating because that’s no way to live.
6. Enroll in online or night classes.
How about learning a new language you can use whenever you travel? Or taking free online classes about Management or Finance on websites such as The Open University? Yes, studying doesn’t also have to restricted in the four corners of a classroom. You won’t get an A+ for your efforts, and you definitely won’t be on the honors list for writing a good essay in French. But you learn something you like and something you consider useful.
7. Be cultured.
Watch as many movies and read as many books as possible. And it doesn’t mean that you only watch the ones with high ratings from critics. Absorb as many forms of entertainment as you want without having to concern yourself whether it’s something that can enrich your life. But you see, there’s a reason why so many people devote their entire lives producing movies and writing novels. Just think of it as memoirs by the people who created them. It’s the fruit of their life experiences and understanding of their surroundings. Movies and books are a good look into how people interpret the world.
8. Do many first’s.
When was the last time you did something for the first time? If you can’t think of the answer, maybe you need to go out and try something new. It can be as simple as watching a movie alone or as big as trying bungee jumping. Doing something for the first time doesn’t need to have a life-changing effect. It can be a simple realization that apparently, going to a film screening by yourself isn’t so bad. You don’t need always need a profound realization for everything you do.
9. Learn to adapt.
You can’t stop change from happening in your life. What you can do is accept that it’s inevitable and you just have to adapt. This is why you can’t stop learning, and you can’t stop growing. When you learn to adapt, you pick up something you haven’t encountered before. You can’t try the same methods over and over again, because no matter how similar a situation may be, it’ll need a different solution and treatment of the problem.
10. Initiate.
Sometimes, you can’t wait for someone to do things for you. If you feel like something has to be done about something, then it’s probably time that you step up. Be the instigator of the change you want to see. Yes, you can’t be alone when you want to make a difference. But who said that little differences don’t matter?
There are so much more to learn, especially now that we’re virtually connected to everyone in the world. As a student of life, it’s really up to you to use all your resources and make it into something enriching.