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My great-aunt started law school in America when she was 74 years old. I was never able to understand why someone would take on such a challenging goal so late in life. Until now, perhaps.

What is learning and why is it important? Let's take a moment to talk about what we already know.

Learning helps us get better jobs, and better jobs mean more money, and more money means more things. Simple stuff, right?

Gandhi instructs us to live a full life each day and make each moment count - great advice and fair enough. But why does he ask us to learn as if we would live forever? No one lives forever, and learning costs lots of money and lots of time. Perhaps Gandhi is helping us to see that there is much more to learning.

What I am hearing is that lifelong learning gives us a reason to be alive and remain excited about the future. It is never too late to begin again or to continue learning. Learning is an active and exciting form of hope - a very personal adventure.

The writer is the special-projects manager at the Wall Street Institute School of English. E-mail him at kevin@wallstreet.in.th.

 

By Kevin P Jones

Special to The nation