Live And Learn

On Saturday, I attended the wedding of a couple that graduated from my school and fellowship, seeing faces, greeting, and catching up with alumni and present members of my fellowship, also meeting new alumnus. Well, it was like a reunion and that’s how it is in the circles I had in school, we share the love very well.

Okay! So one of my friends who finished the same session I did was catching up and asked how life after school was.

“It’s a learning process” I replied “It’s like another school and I bet it so much more fun learning this way than in the ‘four walls’.”

I did not rehearse what I’d say if I was asked that question, in fact I was not expecting to answer any question of the like. My answer humbled me and since then I kept pondering on it and knew I had to write a blog post about it.

I really love to learn but I really hate the pressure of school too. I wouldn’t say I’m book smart at all, I do not have a competitive strength I’d rather do what I can, I’d rather just let what’s within flow. I really hate to struggle to succeed when I do, I rarely succeed, when I put extra effort I don’t see the difference to no effort at all. So in the four walls I’ve had the highs and lows (I think the lows were predominant). I’ve had moments when I ruled and was undisputed, also had moments when I was with the band wagon and anonymous. I really hate reading just to pass, but the system I found myself in doesn’t really work that way so I have to read to pass instead of learn. Through my numerous failures and my few moments of success and fame, I have learnt. I have learnt best in an environment that does not restrain my mind and its power.

Right from those I watched graduate from primary school, valedictory had always emphasized ‘facing the outside world’ and painted it evil and grim to be feared, and everyone in it was a suspect (I’m too sure you don’t agree). Someone who addressed us while I was still an undergraduate mentioned that there was no real world outside there, because the buildings are not built upside down, so we shouldn’t live with the mindset that things are totally different when we leave school and make it an excuse for not cultivating the right habits.

Learning in life’s institution of learning is NOW, because you are in a continuous process of existence and that’s why you are a ‘being’. Learning is progressive because life is. You may have to retake some classes but staying on the same spot without a single change would mean death because the only things that are stagnant are dead things. Plants don’t move but they grow up and wide.

One of my spiritual prowess teachers in secondary school always emphasized that the examination of life has no time table and it stuck in my heart.

Life is a learning institution that presents things to us to teach us to be prepared, because it does not herald its tests season, order of subjects or even area of concentration. Your will is the pen used to write the answer (which is your decision) to life’s questions and the consequences you get tell of your performance.

So I’m learning, trying to pay attention to what life brings my way, sorting out what to keep and what to discard. Acquiring new things and improving old ones. I want to have fun learning from life whether times are good, bad, happy, or sad, I choose to live and I choose to learn.