Trials and Tribulations of 7 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners

It is my belief that lifelong learning is a privilege and a right for every person in this world. In fact, engaging the mind has been proven to be a necessity in preventing the decline of mental processes due to age; learning and discovering new ideas, concepts, and absorbing information can aid in preserving one's senses and keeping the mind sharp and youthful. Therefore, I find the easiest Habit of Highly Successful Lifetime Learners to be Habit #2... take responsibility for your own learning. I have always loved to learn new things, and even while not in school, I enjoy taking extracurricular classes to find new hobbies and expand on the ones which I already enjoy.

Of the suggested habits mentioned, the one which poses as the greatest difficulty for me to embrace is Habit #3: View problems as challenges. I find this to be a demanding proposition: to constantly be looking at the silver lining in the cloud, even when things look bleak. How can one see the potential in problems before the problem has been worked out? I find that the most effective lessons I've learned are ones which have been examined well after a solution has surfaced; only then can one truly understand and learn from testing different strategies. Such skills can prove useful in tackling the next set of problems which, inevitably, will arise. It has not been my experience in life for extreme optimism to be proven fruitful; most of the time, such hopefulness often creates disappointment and stress if the problem in question is not studied realistically. It is this thinking which inhibits me from truly viewing problems as "challenges" to be overcome. I view problems as what they are: difficulties in life, which may make me stronger in the end, but in times of duress, the end result is the last thing on my mind.

(Thing #3 is done!)