What prompts a person to learn? I have been trying to find an answer, especially in the context of work. For many, once out of educational system, learning becomes almost a matter of choice. The highest hurdle in making this choice is the refusal to accept ignorance. We have built a culture around us where ignorance is considered a shame.

Look around! Many of us are trying to convince ourselves that we know, especially in the areas of our specialty or work. Seldom we realize that those confidence-boosters become obstacles in our learning process. The first step in learning is to learn of our ignorance, and to accept it. That’s when we beat the hurdle and choose to learn.

I wonder whether Sir Isaac Newton realized it when he remarked, “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me”!