“Learn at least one thing a year.”

When I was in university, I met these older guys who would come by and study at the campus. I was impressed by them, they looked cool, they were working, one was married and they were ambitious. They espoused success.

Being older than me, they both had that natural age advantage which established them as authority figures. I used to ask one of them a lot of questions about career, and life. In fact, I kept in touch with him even when I moved to NYC. I used to call him regularly to stay in touch.

I would ask them, what are you studying for? Why are you here? You’re done with school! And as we talked over time, there’s one thing that I still remember:

“Learn at least one thing a year.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because, it’s a way to keep yourself busy. To establish goals. To work towards something that will make you better…something you can use tomorrow.”

Have you ever had that a-ha moment but just that it wasn’t until 20 years later? Well if you are reading this, please don’t have that a-ha moment 20 years later. Fight yourself (speaking to me firstly), learn something.

I think there is a lot of wisdom in what was said. Learning something, even just one thing, every year, is profound because it paces you, and it forgives you as well, because it says that even if you have to learn one thing, it’s OK! But it’s something! It allows you to formalize that activity completely with ample time. I mean ask yourself, how many people do not even complete one thing? And hey, if you pick up more than one thing, wonderful.

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