Have you ever wondered “what’s the point of learning?” Nowadays, we focus on grades rather than actually grasping the concept of what we are learning. We get judged for our understanding with our letter grades and percentages for the sole purpose of branding and labeling us. I mean, of course, in the future these grades could be the reason we go to or get rejected from colleges, getting or being denied a job, or even gaining or losing friends. Those with higher grades are people we aspire to be while those with lower grades aren’t as praised. Education sets the foundation for our lives. It revolves around a place with friends and teachers, where anxiety and the feeling of being overwhelmed emerges. Especially during school, there’s a lot of pressure when trying to learn.

It is almost as if there is a constant competition or race that occurs when we go to school. Students will learn, study, and run to the finish line and those who don’t understand something will fall behind. Only a handful of people can win and out of these people, they have the greater potential of becoming successful. Some people are naturally smart like that. Unfortunately, those who fall behind will lose hope and become discouraged. When this happens, they give up on learning and gaining any sort of wisdom. There are many reasons as to why a person could be gradually spiraling down: family problems, social problems, medical/mental problems, stress & overwork, or even personality and character can play a factor.

“The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice.” – Brian Herbert

Most of the time, we don’t really think about why we learn and what the actual point of learning is. In reality, there are a lot of things that we will learn that won’t be useful in life. However, some things we do learn can have a major impact in our lives and can spark a potential career out of it. We were all born with the mindset that learning is a good thing and that it can be used to get far in life. It was imbedded in our heads from a young age to learn as much as you can in order to become successful when we are older. We all have goals and our role in life is to try the best we can to accomplish them. Goals could range from simply going bungee jumping, skydiving, or climbing a mountain to becoming a president, going to a prestigious school, getting a dream job. In order to achieve these goals, we learn. We learn for our own safety, knowledge, to satisfy our curiosities, and to develop as a human being.

For certain people, learning can actually affect someone’s lifestyle. The act itself and the struggles that come along with it can provoke anxiety, stress, headaches, weight gain or loss, etc. There has also been a study that too much studying and overwork can cut down your lifespan due to the lack of care for oneself while working. However, with moderation, learning has many more benefits that outweigh the possibilities of getting harmed. There are also many positive effects that learning can cause such as changing brain chemistry for the better, decreasing the chance of developing diseases like dementia, increasing learning speed, and being able to make connections between ideas.

The truth is no matter how irrelevant something might seem, everything happens for a reason and slightly changes something in your life. Whether or not you grasp the lesson or you can’t, somewhere in your head, the information rests in there. Even if the information isn’t useful to you, yourself, it could help a friend, a relative, or a stranger in need. Somewhere in the future, the information may or may not be useful, but at least you will have the knowledge of knowing.