Something to learn.

Elie in Fife

I smiled yesterday when I heard somebody repeat a well known saying, "Every day is a school day." How true it can be that every day if we take the time we can learn something new.

I have a friend who since retiring has been continually signed up for a variety of courses trying to attain the university degree he never managed to get in his youth. 

There are a great many blocks to a life of learning. The first I suppose is that we just cannot be bothered. We learn enough to get us through the day any more is seen as a task.

Then there are those who feel that they have nothing to learn because they already know everything, and anyway who would you be to teach me, kind of people. I have met a few of those in my time and worked with a few.

It is a very true fact of life that none of us are ever too old to learn something new and exciting. We just need to grasp the day.

This reminds me of a tale about a landlord in an inn who thought he had nothing to learn. One of his customers decided it was time he was taught a little lesson. 

He sat at the bar one day with a little handful of balls wrapped in silver foil. 

The landlord being his usual self asked what they were?  The customer said, "They are brain pills they make you very smart." he proceeded to eat one. 

The landlord very excitedly says, "Give me one." Without waiting he snatches one from the customer and gulps it over quickly with a glass of ale. 

A bit later he comes back to the customer saying that he had been talking rubbish because he felt no different. The customer tells him that he must not have had enough. So he hands him another which he again washes down with some ale. 

Half an hour later he is back asking for a third pill. This time he looks at it with much more care. He sighs it and puts it to the end of his tongue to taste it. 

He turns back to the customer. "Why this is nothing but rabbit dropping!"

"See," says the customer, "you are getting smarter already."

There is nothing in life worse than the person who already thinks they know everything and have nothing to learn.

Have a marvellous day and do remember every day is a school day.