A lot of my friends recognize me as a quick learner, seeming to imply that I’m just lucky, as if I was born with an inherent ability to learn.
I disagree.
I wasn’t born a child prodigy. I didn’t have five thousand digits of pi coming out of my mouth at the age of three, and nor was I exceptionally gifted at anything. In fact, I was the last person in my kindergarten class to learn how to read.
This is a kindergarten progress report that my teacher wrote. It talks about how I have been unable to recognize my e’s. (Ironically I got the same comment about being unable to recognize my e’s in the next report too)
And even though I wasn’t always a fast learner, I had a curiosity that got me into a lot of trouble, both good and bad. My curiosity led me to explore airplanes, ask horrible questions, and completely annoy everyone who was within earshot.
It wasn’t a inherent ability to learn and retain information that got me to where I am today, but my undying curiosity.
There’s a huge difference between learning that driven by performance and learning that is driven by curiosity. Learning that is driven by performance will always value the results over the process, and only learn enough to get by. Learning that is driven by curiosity has no set goal in mind, because it seeks to learn with an open mind. Learning that is driven by curiosity will link new things together, causing a much more complete and holistic picture of the world.
That way, when new information is processed, someone with a more connected, intuitive sense will be able to make connections and learn things much faster than the person that is simply trying to memorize facts.
Be curious.
