Re-learning How to Learn

When I was 17 life seemed so simple. High school was a breeze, little more than an annoyance that must be accepted as part of the grander scheme. I had to go, it was the law, but it got in the way of so much that I thought was more important. I earned decent grades with fairly little effort, but only for the classes that kept my interest. English Literature and Algebra were easy, while Physics...not so much. The point is that at 17 learning was something I took for granted, not even something I thought about.

Then, graduation and some tough choices. Let's see, I could continue to live the life that I enjoyed, carefree and irresponsible, or I could buckle down and attend college and make something of myself. To me, that seemed like a waste of time, but I did what was expected of me. I enrolled in college straight out of high school. Then I withdrew two days in.

Eleven years later, there I was, working a meaningless, unsatisfying job and wondering where I went wrong. Then it hit me. I had withdrawn from school so many years ago, and time went on whether I had been paying attention or not.

My life had gone in many different directions over the years and I had learned plenty, most of it the hard way. I learned things like, "don't believe everything you hear", "don't trust someone just because they say you can", "don't give your heart away just because you want to", and "don't eat the brown acid", but I had stopped learning things that inspired me.

Since taking my first class as a DMD student I have been hooked. This relatively new world of digital media has captivated me. I already knew I loved photography and the digital world that it lives in, but I did not anticipate how much I would enjoy learning other things. I had lost touch with the love I felt for learning when I had been inspired by teachers who loved what they did.
While most of my classes have been online thus far, I have been touched and inspired by the instructors that taught them (well, most of them), and I have re-learned how to learn.

Whether from a book, an online lecture, a classroom full of computers, or in the school of hard knocks, learning is not something that ends. I'm just glad that I have found a way to enjoy doing it.