Proverbs 16:23
The heart of the wise teaches his own mouth…and adds more learning to his own lips.
I believe that there are two hands that work together to mold our knowledge...and our process of learning.
These two work upon us… just as the hands of a potter work the clay upon his wheel...one working upon us from the outside...and another pressing upon us from the inside. Hopefully, through this process we can become a vessel of greater value for ourselves, for others, and most importantly for God.
The first one is the knowledge that others possess. If we limit ourselves to the resources that only lie within our own mindset and archive of ideas, we have excluded ourselves from the largest resource of information available to us. I am not saying that we should go out with the idea of simply plagiarizing the ideas of others. However, surely we can use them as a foundation of knowledge upon which we can build something unique and improved.
Secondly, we need to continuously go back and study our own ideas, and make ourselves students of our own lives. We must never allow ourselves to become stagnant and settle for anything less than the best. Our lives and our understanding are like works of art. We must go back to the canvas to add more details...and create greater clarity and depth. Nominal ideas can be turned into good ideas, and good ideas can be turned into great ones.
There is no doubt that learning is in itself a posture of our own personal attitude. Furthermore, the most effective teaching lessons that we will ever receive are the ones to which we are self-motivated. A true student is not one who has to be, but rather one who wants to be. This is where self-discipline comes into play. My own father used to tell me when I was just a child, “Son, you have to want it for yourself. No one is going to give it to you. You have to go out and get it.” There are a multitude of things that just will not happen, if we ourselves do not take initiative to do them...and continual learning ranks right there at the top of the list of things that should possess us with the greatest sense of imperative and urgency.
Here is an interesting quote by Thomas Watson. “Nothing so conclusively proves one’s ability to lead others...as to what he does day to day to lead himself.”