OLD DOGS NEED NEW TRICKS - Your Tips For Life-Long Learning
OLD DOGS NEED NEW TRICKS
Henry Ford said, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.”
LIFE LONG LEARNING
Life-Long Learning is a term I kept coming across in my study of retirement. Wikipedia defines it as “The ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge for personal or professional reasons.” and it’s a great motto to use while we try to keep up in these fast changing times.
“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next 2 years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten” Bill Gates via Thomas Oppong
THE BENEFITS OF LIFE-LONG LEARNING
In retirement, we’ve been given the gift of time and flexibility. You could spend that time binging shows on Netflix or growing your knowledge bank and developing new skills.
Ongoing personal development enriches our lives and gives us a sense of momentum. The process of learning exposes you to new areas of interest. It allows you to explore the world and see it with fresh eyes.
Learning something new exercises your brain which is critical as we age. Just like physical fitness, with mental fitness, if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.
The benefits you’ll see are:
You’ll maintain the ability to reason your way through and solve new problems.
Helps reduce the risk of cognitive decline.
Maintaining a healthy mindset through curiosity.
Keep up to date with technological advancements.
There are also social benefits to learning. Taking classes keeps you engaged and connects you with people on the same path as you. My wife takes art classes and I’ve done the same with writing classes. It’s fun and reassuring to swap notes with others learning the same thing as you, and on top of that, you make new friends.
HOW AND WHERE TO LEARN
What skills from your youth do you want to brush up on? Piano? Drawing? Algebra?
Senior centers and local libraries offer a wide variety of classes. Many colleges make it easy for seniors to participate. In Massachusetts, community colleges let you sit in on classes if you’re over 60 and there’s room.
We don’t lack online learning opportunities. There are a ton of free learning resources available to you:
YouTube is an amazing free resource for anything you want to learn from ukulele to cooking.
My favorite online learning resource is Khan Academy. In 2004, Sal Khan started tutoring math to his cousins on the other side of the country using internet tools. His courses grew to include science, tech, economics, and arts and humanities. His audience grew too. In 2010 Google donated $2,000,000 to Khan so he could expand his programs. Other donations followed from Bill and Melinda Gates, AT&T, and, Elon Musk. Here’s the link to Khan Academy: Link: www.khanacademy.org
FreeLearningList is a solid website that organizes and ranks free Internet learning resources. Check it out: FreeLearningList .org
There are also paid sites that I use and recommend:
WHAT CAN YOU LEARN NOW THAT YOU MISSED BEFORE?
A book was published recently by Alec Wilkinson called A Divine Language - Learning Algebra, Geometry, And Calculus At The Edge Of Old Age. Wilkinson is well into his 60’s and admits, as I should, that he barely got through high school math. He challenged himself to learn and understand what haunted him years before and wrote a book about the journey.
HAVE A LIFE-LONG LEARNING PLAN
Be proactive in developing a Life-Long Learning Plan. Follow a passion, revisit forgotten topics from your school days, or learn so you can follow along with what your grandkids are learning in school.
BIT OF HUMOR
DOLLARS AND SENSE
How Inflation Really Works
Every time you reach for your wallet lately, inflation seems easy to understand. However, the causes and fixes are far murkier. Here’s a great illustrated and interactive guide created by Finmasters.com to help you out. It’s simple enough for us old farts to understand and simple enough for your school aged kids and grandkids.
Link: How Inflation Works
HEALTH & VITALITY
You Eat A Credit Card’s Worth Of Plastic Every Week
That’s the title of the below article and it got my attention. Micro plastics are everywhere. They’re being found in the food chain, water supply, and in the air. They’ve even been found at the top of Mount Everest.
Micro plastics are a result of the breakdown of plastic in our environment. With almost 400 million tons of plastic produced every year, and only 10% of “recycled” plastic actually getting recycled, our problem with the stuff is not going away soon.
I’m not sure how accurate the credit card estimate is, and the risks are not well defined. But, it’s something worth paying attention to. Bon Appetite!
Read More Here
WATCHING AND READING
Get Your Cheap & Free eBooks Here!
Not exactly what I’m reading, but this is where I get a lot of it. BookBub is a great source of cheap eBooks. The site offers summaries and reviews of books that are being discounted and links you to the online store to buy them, mainly Amazon. The books are priced between $2.99 and free, and include most categories, except phone books.
Link: BookBub Website
If you’re not satisfied with cheap and want free access to eBooks, audiobooks, and magazines, check with your local library to see if you have access to Libby. Libby is a reading app similar to Kindle for you smartphone or pad. Their selection is not as current as BookBub, but their selection is vast.
Link: Libby Website
FUN AND FRIVOLITY
BEST FOREIGN CITY TRAVEL TIPS
Traveling to other countries is invaluable to being a well-rounded citizen of earth. Canada has been a big part of my life. There has also been many stops through the Caribbean. But it’s the visits to London and Paris that have the biggest impact on me.
Author Dan Pink in one of his Pinkcast videos gives his 5 tips for optimizing travel to a foreign city. (Originally shared on the website Recommedo)
Here they are:
Go to the highest point in the city. In Paris we went to the Sacre-Coeur Basilica. The view was worth the climb and understanding the history of Paris and seeing Notre Dame, The Eifel Tower, and Arc de Triumph by just moving your head a little bit was amazing.
Buy a local newspaper. I picked up a Times Of London once, but finding an English language newspaper in Paris was harder.
Ride public transportation. You get a real taste of what the local population of each city is like. It was revealing to see how diverse both London and Paris are just by riding their subway.
Go to McDonald’s (Seriously.) Sue Sue and I did this in Paris. It was an interesting experience but we didn’t go back.
Spend an hour in a grocery store. While in Paris, we stayed in an Airbnb and due to Sue Sue’s food allergies we needed to cook most of our meals. Our grocery trips we always a fun adventure. They had tacos but trying to figure out which cheese to buy was a challenge.
A QUOTE TO CHEW ON
“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.” Oscar Wilde