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Learning is a Way of Life

"Learning is a way of life.  And while many people like learning for the sheer joy of it, the most difficult aspects of learning are often not fun.  It's easy to learn when it's entertaining, recreational, and engaging.  It's not so easy when you must confront embarrassment, discomfort, and distress.

If you love to learn how to cook a new cuisine, how to grow organic vegetables, how to sail, how to snowboard, this type of learning is most often a pleasure.  Two things motivate you: your interest in the activity, and your delight during the process of learning.

But there is another type of learning, one that is not always so welcomed: the learning that life forces upon us.  Hardships, disappointments, failures, and misfortune can be hard teachers indeed.  And yet, often we learn the most from adversity.

Going through bad times forces us to dig deeper into ourselves, review some of our most basic premises, rethink our values, and find our own source of inner strength (Fritz, 2003,p. 199)."

Reference:  Fritz, R. (2003).  Your life as art.  Newfane, VT: Newfane Press.

What lessons has life taught you?

Your Life as Art is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center.  A complete listing of all the Leadership Center's resources is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center.  To borrow this resource or any other resource, please go to the resource search page http://164.107.48.88/winnebago/index.asp?lib=???

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Created: 2008-04-03, Updated: 2009-01-09