What are the excuses to resist lifelong learning?

The only excuse I have run across for resisting life-long learning is immaturity. Folks want to live for the moment and so prefer to sit around, watch TV, and indulge in fast food and alcohol.

Otherwise, I have known people who have simply given up out of despair or illness.

Personally, I believe in learning (at least) one new thing before lunch each day.

There are no excuses to resist lifelong learning, at least none that are valid in my eyes. People who are willing to point to excuses no matter what their age are not people I tend to choose to interact with.

I come from a family where experimentation and sharing are highly valued. My family supports each other in their independent missions. For example recently I needed a set of wool combs to help process my fleece, but they retail for hundreds of dollars here in Canada if you can even find them. But I asked my dad and showed him some Youtube videos I had, and he applied the knowledge he gains throughout his life and made me a beautiful and functional set (then he made another pair as a backup). We each gained knowledge and will continue to gain more as we interact.

I cannot imagine having a life where this was not the case, a life where experimentation and collaboration were discouraged or people made excuses for not getting out there and learning and trying something new. My mother has learned tons of new things over time, we share and learn together as well. So has my sister, in fact I learned a lot about baking and cake design through her own acquired knowledge.

That said, I have encountered a few people who act in this way, a family member who rolled their eyes at my fleece adventure asking “why would you waste your time on that”. Guess what, I don’t interact with that family member often, and will continue to not interact because I don’t get any value from that relationship at all and have much better things to invest my time in than that.

I don’t think it’s a matter of excuses or resistance. Some people simply have no appetite for learning and, once they reached some level of competency in their lives, never have. Their natural love of learning was not nurtured early or was simply scorched or hammered out of them by their educational or life experiences.

I am most comfortable among people who have a lively curiosity and a hunger to educate themselves constantly; who are a trove of knowledge on a wide range of subjects, some very esoteric, and who share them readily; who read, listen, and ask questions and can’t imagine life otherwise. But I do know some who seem to have stopped reading when they left school and appear to be satisfied that they know all they need to know to live, work, and play. I can’t say I understand them at all, but I don’t think they are resisting or excusing anything, both of which are active responses to a challenge. I think they are just passively not doing anything and are content with that.

The best excuse is to simply ignore your definition of lifelong learning. Everyone is always learning, at different rates, throughout their lifetime.

I have no evidence that is not personal or anecdotal, but I am 60, and I am a full time undergraduate at University of New York at Albany. (I’m a Senior, and I intend to go on to get an MSW.)

My girlfriend reports that over the last three years (I started as a Freshman in 2006) I have become much quicker and more lively intellectually. It feels that way to me, too, and, other than the loneliness, I am enjoying myself a great deal and am on the Dean’s list.)

Of course you can’t generalize from the specific, and this story constitutes no proof, but I’m a believer.

Ignorance is bliss?

“I’d rather be partying.”

I think the power of suggestion has a lot to do with us giving up on life in general at a certain age. That’s what our great grandparents did, our grandparents, and so that’s what our parents are supposed to do. I don’t think people necessarily resist or make up excuses not to, but rather they’re conditioned to believe that they aren’t as productive as youths. But I think of late we’re trying to break this trend. There’s no reason to become inactive post-menopause (or whatever the man version of that is). If you don’t let yourself believe that you’re old and feeble, you can keep going. You can go rollerskating if you want, or learn a new instrument, or figure out that new gadget without your grandkids’ help. Keep exercising body, noggin, and soul!

The same excuse given to resist any kind of learning. Let’s face it, not everyone values knowledge for knowledge’s sake. I bet that those who have never liked to learn never really change.

My experience with the older population (basically mine and others, grandparents), those who continue to be mentally and/or physically active are the one’s who live longer and are able to maintain their bodies and minds.

It has a lot to do with American (or perhaps Western) culture. We celebrate graduations at many levels with the last one as a bookend to learning; you’ve now learned all you need to function at work and life, so let’s party!

As painful as it is, I have very few friends who continued active learning after they were done with school. When I question them about it, they usually say something along the lines of, “Why do I need to? In what way will it benefit my life?” I find this question difficult to answer for myself at times. As a Literature major who is most likely going into law, how does reading Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us benefit me? It doesn’t really, except to sate my curiosity and learn something “cool.”

We live in a very goal-oriented time and if your hobbies don’t somehow push your goals forward, they are considered impractical and a waste of time. At the same time, I have a number of people who turn to me when they need information on a wide variety of subjects. Why bother learning new things when you can just ask some “smart” person what you need to know when you need to know it? The internet even cuts the smart person out of that equation in some respects.

With older people, like my mother, the excuse is always bad glasses or bad memory; they either can’t see the book well enough or can’t remember things from the book. These excuses are BS in my opinion (just get new glasses and your memory will come back to you as read more). What’s more troubling is the similarity in excuses I hear from people in my own age group, about how reading for too long makes their head swim or they don’t have the time or how they’d rather watch a movie.

I’m too set in my ways. Change is too hard. I’m too old. It’s too much work. The world has passed me by. I don’t need to learn. I’m too lazy. I couldn’t compete. I couldn’t make the grade. What’s the point? I have better things to do. I have responsibilities. I can’t take time off from work. It won’t get me anywhere. I can’t afford it.

Should I go on?

Laziness is all I can think of. And I know of no one who resists lifelong learning, because I reject anyone with that thinking. It’s willful ignorance at the most basic level.

People change priorities. They may not be into spending time pursuing what you’d like them to pursue. But they’re doing something. They’re learning something.

I’m sure there are things I enjoy that other people would see as a waste of time and there are things that other people do that I think would be a waste of time for me. It’s up to each individual how they want to spend their time, what they want to pursue or learn. Just because they make different choices than you doesn’t mean it’s a waste of time for them.

All I know is that at age 83 my father has taken up yet another career and is writing papers on cosmology, several of which have been published in peer-reviewed journals. By training he was a chemical engineer, but he also worked in management and in industrial hygiene, taught University-level business classes on EPA and OSHA, published papers in statistics and in risk analysis, served on a number of boards, founded a professional society, and done several other things.

While I don’t plan to start studying quantum physics in my eighties as he has, I hope to have a similar level of curiosity about the world.

BTW, he is currently taking classes in French just because he has always wanted to improve his ability to speak it.

@Zendo – It’s true that healthy brains have no choice but to learn as long as people live. But the term lifelong learning is related to exposing the brain to rich and diverse new input. If people watch the same three channels everyday for 8 hours they’ll learn how the story in a series continues. But most of the time the brain is on auto-pilot.

depends what your definition of lifelong learning is. I like to expand my knowledge of the things that interest me, and that is a pretty long list. Being eternally curious doesn’t hurt. College? I have no desire for structured education simply because I am not wired that way. I like to make my own ‘aha’ moments, and discover things at my own pace.

That, and I hated high school passionately because of the cliquishness of structured education. I am a learning loner, coming together with others only when I cannot find a solution on my own. That’s why I like Fluther, there are no set class times. =)

Many famous folks were self-taught, and while some folks look down on individualistic education as somehow not on par with going to university, I do not.

If going to college makes you smart, then going to the garage makes you a car.

Definition

Steps

Foundation

I belive it depends on your childhood environment and the principles society valued when you grew up.

In france, most middle and working class people are taught mediocrity from the youngest age. Ambition (whether financial, professional and cultural) is seen negatively and too many people grow up to believe that excellence, or even just self-improvement, are “not for people like them”. I couldn’t count the number of people I met who believed that the secret to a successful life was to find a hiding place, a safe job from which they can’t be fired, one that will drive them safely to a generous retirement pension.

The upper class, on the other hand, goes to the university to learn just enough to meet their parents’ expectations and they expect a network of like-minded acquaintances from similar backgrounds so they can scratch each other’s back later in life. The biggest brake on lifelong learning is this belief that they know everything and it’s more about who you know anyway.

It tends to be less true, though, as society evolves. First because universities understood in recent years the need to teach a more American approach to work. Second because globalization has brought a lot of foreign companies to france and with them, their work ethics.

@Jeruba – I like the 15 steps, especially the ‘unlearn assumptions’ advice. Thanks for the links!

@Jack_Haas – How do you explain that France is among the richest nations in the world? I think some of the country’s strength does not come from copying American approaches.

Let’s see… without colonialism (pillaging francafrique for decades), france wouldn’t be anywhere near where it is now. There’s also… living off the prestige afforded by the Enlightment; supporting Economic champions with taxpayer money; using its clout in EU institutions (= milking the franco-German friendship for everything it’s worth) to open markets for its champions while protecting their turf at home from foreign takeovers (electricity, phone services, etc…); using its seat at the UN to do the dirty bidding of tyrants in order to get contracts for pennies on the dollar (like the oil-for-food program); doing business with rogue regimes where Anglos are barred to compete; not having to spend a lot on defense also helps; after WW2 france got massive aid from the US. The reconstruction era brought full employment and a rapidly growing economy. Not reimbursing a penny of the money owed to the US didn’t hurt the country’s finances.

But then there also is a strong entrepreneurial, capitalist spirit in a small part of the population. If it wasn’t obvious before, a recently created entrepreneurial status removed any doubt. Its benefits are very little bureaucracy and no entry fee (normally you’d have to pay several thousand euros upfront). The government hoped to get 120k registrations for the year. They had over 200k in the first 3 months. They’re working on relaxing the rules for other structures as well. Already relaxed rules on freelancers and consultants allow business to hire people they can fire. It’s clear to me that American-style capitalism has been a strong influence on the french business world, a lot more than the french intellectual elites realize (thank God!), but what’s new is that people outside of the ole boys club have caught the virus.

So yes, the country has gained a lot from being on the wrong side of morality and history, but it also earns a lot on the backs of people who live by American ideals of Freedom and opportunity.