A vivacious and intelligent attorney friend of mine posted this today as her Facebook status and it immediately made me raise my hands to the sky and shout AMEN!  Here’s what Ms. Harris posted:

“IF you’re the smartest person in the room…you’re in the wrong room.”
Moral of the story: Surround yourself with people smarter than you so you can continue to learn.
This NBA conference has been amazing. I’m definitely leaving a better woman.
‪#‎Blessed‬ ‪#‎GodisGood‬ ‪#‎NeverSTOPlearning‬

I can’t keep track of how many times I tell my children the same thing.  They are mad at me for making them work on math drills, handwriting lessons, vocabulary lists and spelling tests this summer.  “Summer is supposed to be fun!” they tell me in their defense. One afternoon after being bombarded by their protests and procrastination I blurted out “This is for your own good because the moment you stop learning is the exact moment you stop growing.  The moment you stop learning is the moment you stop truly living! You’d just be sitting there just robbing oxygen.”

They might say I have a nack for the dramactic sometimes, I inherit that from my maternal grandmother.  When she would get upset and would think we were ignoring her she would scream “Don’t mind me, I’m just robbing oxygen over here”  (“robando oxijano” para los que hablan español)  I’m embarrassed to say that abuela Modesta came out during that rant to the boys about learning but I got my point across nonetheless.

My redemption from that outburst came last week when we went out for lunch.  One of the boys accidentally let one of his vocabulary words slip out during conversation.  As soon as he finished his sentence he looked at my husband and I with a huge proud grin on his face and said “HEY!  I used one of the vocab words!  Did you hear it?!  I sound so smart!”

So whether you are charismatic attorney attending a professional development conference, a retiree starting a new chapter in life, or an 11 year old boy trying to get his mom off his case, we all have the choice to make on a daily basis to embrace learning.  Try new experiences, pick up a book, watch a thought provoking documentary, plant a garden, try a new recipe, do a puzzle…. anything fun can become a learning event with the right attitude!  If you don’t, you’ll turn into my slightly melodramatic grandmother and find yourself muttering in a corner “don’t mind me, I’m just robbing oxygen over here” while everyone else passes you by on their learning journeys.   Don’t get left behind and go have fun learnin somethin today, it’s not too late!