A Life of Learning

[Guest guest]

A Life of Learning

Earth School

Life is the province of learning, and the wisdom we acquire throughout our lives

is the reward of existence. As we traverse the winding roads that lead from

birth to death, experience is our patient teacher. We exist, bound to human

bodies as we are, to evolve, enrolled by the universe in earth school, an

informal and individualized academy of living, being, and changing. Life's

lessons can take many forms and present us with many challenges. There are

scores of mundane lessons that help us learn to navigate with grace, poise, and

tolerance in this world. And there are those once-in-a-lifetime lessons that

touch us so deeply that they change the course of our lives. The latter can be

heartrending, and we may wander through life as unwilling students for a time.

But the quality of our lives is based almost entirely on what we derive from our

experiences.

 

Earth school provides us with an education of the heart and the soul, as well as

the intellect. The scope of our instruction is dependent on our ability and

readiness to accept the lesson laid out before us in the circumstances we face.

When we find ourselves blindsided by life, we are free to choose to close our

minds or to view the inbuilt lesson in a narrow-minded way. The notion that

existence is a never-ending lesson can be dismaying at times. The courses we

undertake in earth school can be painful as well as pleasurable, and as taxing

as they are eventually rewarding. However, in every situation, relationship, or

encounter, a range of lessons can be unearthed. When we choose to consciously

take advantage of each of the lessons we are confronted with, we gradually

discover that our previous ideas about love, compassion, resilience, grief,

fear, trust, and generosity could have been half-formed.

 

Ultimately, when we acknowledge that growth is an integral part of life and that

attending earth school is the responsibility of every individual, the concept of

" life as lesson " no longer chafes. We can openly and joyfully look for the

blessing buried in the difficulties we face without feeling that we are trapped

in a roller-coaster ride of forced learning. Though we cannot always know when

we are experiencing a life lesson, the wisdom we accrue will bless us with the

keenest hindsight.

8:49 PM 5/22/2009