Living a Life
A very dear friend who recently transitioned use to repeat this line often to me, “Remember, you’re not going to school to get a degree, you are going to get an education”. I reflect on it almost daily, especially being a current student. This quote relates to so much more than getting an education.
I believe what he meant was, don’t be passive, be an active participant in your life. Everyday we are faced with the choice to breeze through the day unconsciously or be awake, in tune, aware. This can be even easier to do as a student with semesters flying by. In very subtle ways, being a student for me, has been a lot of unlearning. For example, being a student requires lots and lots of note taking. Most of us weren’t taught how to learn. We were taught to submit assignments, get the grade, get the piece of paper, we call degree or diploma. I’ve been challenged to unlearn that. What’s the difference? Well, I recently found myself typing notes word for word while reading and asking myself… “how would I say this in my own words?” It hasn’t been easy to learn consciously when for years learning felt like a task list of assignments to turn in. To take notes starts with truly understanding whats being said in the first place. When you understand something, articulating it becomes easier.
There are lots of Social Psychology studies around what we will do or not do to be “correct”. Think about a situation that you are experiencing for the first time, and that flood of thoughts that starts running through your mind, “am I doing this right? do I look wild doing this? If people are around it becomes, “can they tell I don’t know what I am doing ?” We can get all in our heads about doing things the “right” way.
I had this awareness while taking notes… For years I have taken notes by trying to write every word in a presentation or book. To make sure I get the “right” definition, or the exact words used because anything else will feel “wrong”. I can’t possibly say it better than the originator. But what if it has nothing to do with saying it best as much as saying it the way you understand it in your own words? To actually pause and process what someone is saying or what one is reading requires mental effort. Translating that into your own words requires further effort. Those two steps help us gauge what we are actually understanding and learning vs passively consuming.
I found this practice of being passive vs active in note taking to be a beautiful way to expand self-trust. I think part of what makes us want to note-take word for word is that we think others are the experts and we’re not. But is being an “expert” as important to a learner learning a topic for the first time? No, understanding concepts is. Therefore, I think it can be so helpful to build our self trust through asking ourselves when reading… “what is being said here? what am I getting from this? Are there personal examples I can connect to this concept?
All of that to say, living is a verb. To live is to be involved. To be a thinking person. We were each gifted a beautiful mind that if we nurture and guide can be add much fulfillment to our life. How would your life be different if you became an active participant, if you did things with the intention to experience fulfillment and expansion. If we treat life as a series of “getting degrees” will we ever have truly lived?