Discovering Significance

“After I graduated from college my father pulled me aside and said he noticed that I had stopped learning.” – Don Hein

Discovering Significance

I’ve developed a habit of reviewing each week and asking myself the question, “What did you learn of significance?”  It’s a way to boil the whole week down into a simple something I can grab hold of and call my own.

I remember starting this practice after a conversation with my friend Don Hein, no long after we graduated from College.  Don and I were talking about an exchange he recently had with his father.

He said, “After I graduated from college my father pulled me aside and said he noticed that I had stopped learning.  Then he asked me to tell him about the last book I had read.  I told him I hadn’t read one since I graduation.  That’s when he said, ‘the purpose of college was to teach you how to learn.  You didn’t graduate so you could be finished with learning!’”

Since that conversation I’ve tried to continually keep my focus on learning new ideas and things.  But, over the past three years or so, I’ve found a new dimension to learning that I had never before considered.  I call it “lessons of arrogance.” 

Now as I study some subjects in more depth, I see gaps in my knowledge base because of personal arrogance.  These gaps have occurred because rather than learn every detail about a subject; I learned what I thought I needed to know and then filled the gaps with subjective assumptions.  I was conceited enough to think I could “make the rest up,” all the while believing that I was well educated.  Now I can see I’ve missed things of interest and wonder.

Once I opened my eyes to the possibility of challenging my own assumptions I began to see new and exciting possibilities.  Perhaps more importantly, I’ve been able ask myself the question, “What if what I’ve always believed isn’t correct?”  Talk about living a life of interest and wonder!  Now I have the pleasure of wondering what else I’m wrong about and I’m excited to discover a whole new world.

Discovery can come in many forms.  Make discovering truth about yourself and our world significant in your life.  Challenge your assumptions about what you think every day.  Take time to understand why what you’ve learned is significant and then let the wonder of learning propel you forward.