AGE is not a barrier to learn. I chose this topic as there are many people who think that after certain age they cannot study and so they give up. It spoils their career and constraint them from growing. It is human psychology that after age of 25 one cannot study as a person has many household responsibilities and he need to do well in that. Traditional mindset is that once a person starts earning, he/she only needs to concentrate only on work and effectively manage household activities. Is the traditional thought which is going on since long, True? To get more clarity on this we will try to figure out what Age is? How does it impact on an individual’s life?

Age is effect of time on a person. Certainly as and when a person gets older he/she physically becomes weak and they can feel the impact of being old. As and when time pass person gets more responsibilities and they gets more inclined towards it. Single handedly managing many things brings them into more stress and cannot concentrate on personal development. They gets surrounded by complexities of life and gets less time to think about future and growth prospect linked to the same. They need to take care of their spouse, family and society and fulfill responsibilities towards them. In this course they don’t get time to learn and enrich themselves with knowledge. Learning and getting knowledge is equally important as other responsibilities because if they don’t do so their career gets constraint from growing and at one point of time they get stuck.

“Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.”

Learning is defined as the social process of construing and appropriating a new or revised interpretation of the meaning of one’s experience as a guide to action. One of your most treasured values is the love of learning. Learning is something that impacts nearly every facet of your existence, every day. You should constantly learn new things, or refresh on existing knowledge. Even when you are not learning, you should apply skills or knowledge on logic problem in a puzzle book, in order to exercise your mind. Without an individual’s drive and desire to learn he/she would have never, so it is very important to have constant desire and motivation to learn. Learning new information, such as history and social science is vital to our evolution as a civilization. We must learn from our past, our societal flaws, and our behavior in order to become a better individual. The individuals that ignore or resist learning opportunities become mentally good for nothing.

Those who cannot or will not stop to examine, study, and analyze the world around them seem to have little or no ability to apply any form of analysis upon them, thus may not achieve a level of self-actualization. Those without any motivation to learn seem to lead a unconscious existence. They appreciate things less and hence are more socially awkward, are more likely to be fearful or prejudicial against things they do not understand. As a result they are less emotionally fulfilled, but they cannot understand why. It is common to say that ignorance is bliss, but from what I have seen that is only illusion, because those who are ignorant, lack the self reflection necessary to understand how unblissful they are. It is true that knowing hard truths can make people depressed, angry, frustrated, but not knowing keeps you in just a vulnerable or dangerous position without the benefit of knowing what to expect or how to prepare.

Henry Ford once said “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”

Importance of Learning:-

1) Personal Development – Learning helps in enriching knowledge and knows more about current affairs. This helps in personal development which is very important for an every individual. Personal development includes activities that help improve awareness and identity, develop inner talent and potential of an individual; it also builds human capital and facilitates employability, enhance quality of life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspirations.

2) Career growth – If an individual keeps on learning than it helps him to grow in career and attain zenith in the same. Career Development is the lifelong process of managing learning, work, leisure, and transitions in order to move toward a personally determined and evolving desired future.

3) Self Actualization– A theory of Human Motivation, Maslow explicitly defines self-actualization to be “the desire for self-fulfillment, namely the tendency for an individual to become actualized in what he is potentially. Constant learning can help individual satisfy his self-actualization need.

4) Confidence- Constant learning makes a man confident on its own as he is aware of many things which are going around the world. Confident person works well and always be happy and do away with stress and negativity.

“As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.”

There are many examples of business tycoon who studied after being settled in career, in order to grow and attain zenith in their field.

1) Ratan Tata {Chairman of TATA sons} – Ratan Tata studied in Mumbai at the Campion School and completed his secondary education at the Cathedral and John Connon School. He completed his Bachelors in architecture with structural engineering from Cornell University in 1962 and the Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School in 1975 when he was 38 year old. Is 38 years too old to get a degree?

2) Kumar Mangalam Birla {Chairman of Aditya Birla group} – K.M. Birla has B-Com degree from University of Bombay & holds and professional degree of Chartered Accountant. After completing CA he joined business after sudden death of his father. After completing few years in business he went to London for masters. He also did his MBA from London Business School UK.

Learning is a continuous process and the true learner always looks avenues to learn from anybody and everybody. There is no bar on learner’s age or the age of the teacher. A young child can teach you something which you may have not learnt till now. Similarly, every old and poor man can teach you something very important.

Have you ever heard someone say, “I’m too old to learn”?

Did you believe them? I hope not.

There are many people in their 50’s and 60’s going back to college to earn their degree. At that point in their life they are probably doing it because it is something they want to accomplish. The likelihood of improved earning power is no longer the motivating factor.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be academics.

Keep Learning and keep growing, you are not old to stop learning. You should always feel young when you want to learn something.

“Never stop learning, because life never stops teaching”