I am a student of LIFE

My best friend is back at the college campus where we met (gulp) 20 years ago, this time starting up her Masters Program. She is walking around campus watching the parents drop off their child at their dorm, or their first apartment, or their last year at the sorority house. We got nostalgic about the old bars we frequented and the parties we attended. To think back to that time and consider how naive I was. These kids that are arriving at college think they know it all. Leaving the nest and vying in the real world on their own for the first time. Man, I learned a lot in those 4 years. A year and a half in the Business School, two and a half years in the School of Human Development, and 4 solid years in the School of Learn From Your Mistakes.

That period of our lives, in our late teens and early twenties are so full of learning. I look at my elementary school-aged kids now and am amazed at their propensity for grasping new concepts. And we've all heard how toddlers can pick up a second language so much easier than anyone else. My friend is in her late 30's and is embarking on this next level of higher education--knowing so much more than she did when she was in college a couple decades ago. Reflecting on my own life I marvel at how I have changed and grown since becoming a mother 10 years ago. Ten years from now I'll have three children leaving my nest and commencing the stage of learning that only happens by jumping in with both feet. Whoa--scary! (For Mom!) But it's a necessary part of life. Thank goodness they have me to prepare them for it now ;).

Life IS learning. We are on this planet for a finite amount of time and our task is to learn and grow. I know people who didn't go to college but have had experiences that make them some of the wisest people I know. In turn, I know people with a couple of degrees who I wonder if "they'll ever learn." Not everyone is open to receive the teaching in what life offers us every day. That is what I want to foster in my kids. The inquisitiveness to question, the receptivity to accept, and the humility to know that there is always something new to gain, something to help us become wiser, kinder, happier, and higher.