Learning to Learn: Why You Need to Leverage Your Curiosity

By Julia Sun

As children, we naturally question everything. But as we grow up, we often lose this innate sense of curiosity. In Learning to Learn: Why You Need to Leverage Your Curiosity, Julia Sun uses her own experiences alon

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: Dec 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781636762074

Book preview

LEARNING TO LEARN

LEARNING TO LEARN

Julia Sun

New Degree Press

Copyright © 2020 Julia Sun

All rights reserved.

LEARNING TO LEARN

ISBN 978-1-63676-583-9 Paperback

978-1-63676-206-7 Kindle Ebook

978-1-63676-207-4 Ebook

To my mom, Kathy Li, and my dad, David Sun, for instilling in me the love I have for learning, and for teaching me some of the best life lessons I’ll ever know.

Contents

Introduction

Prologue

A Note on the Post-COVID World

The Philosophy of Learning

The Pursuit of Learning

The Roadblocks

The Confidence Gap

The Importance of Acting First

The Innovation Mindset

Learning in Action

The Importance of Remaining Open

The Importance of Action

The Importance of Community

The Importance of Unlearning and Relearning

The Importance of Resources

Epilogue

Resources

Acknowledgements

Appendix

Introduction

I wish I could say that what drove me to write this book was the inability to stop the overflow of twenty-one years of words from within me. I wish I could say that on a random winter’s night, I decided to write it and to leave my words for generations to come. If only I could say I was deep in the midst of an existential crisis (more like a quarter life crisis) and needed a project to pull me out of it.

But none of these are the truth.

The truth is that this book, and the two-year-long journey (originally was supposed to be one) that came with it, is the result of one magical night watching a rendition of The Nutcracker at the National Ballet of Canada in Toronto over the Christmas holidays in December 2018.

There was no sudden calling nor a wake up at 3:00 a.m. with an idea type of moment.

It was one night, dozens of ballerinas, and a burst of magic.

Ballet Magic Becomes a Book

On that bitterly cold night in Toronto in December of 2018, I was comfortably nestled among thousands and thousands of spectators in the big performance hall (which is nearly impossible to imagine now amid the pandemic and a dreadful second wave). The energy was high; it was hard not to be excited to watch one of the city’s most renowned ballet performances during the holiday season.

For a little over two hours that night, I watched the ballerinas, underneath the soft glow of the stage lights, glide across the stage. They leapt and soared in the air and landed with total and utter grace. They seemed to be as light as the tulle on their costumes, landing just as swiftly as they had gone up in the air. Like they were being pulled up by a piece of invisible string tied around their waist. Up and down, up and down. With just their movements, their other counterparts, the accompanying music, and the stage, they were able to create another world—an ethereal world with sugar plum fairies, mouse kings, angels, and nutcracker princes.

Aside from focusing on their movements, I tried to catch glimpses of their facial expressions every so often. Did they seem excited? Anxious? Euphoric? I tried to imagine how they felt on stage when they were doing their big solo dance. How did it feel to have thousands and thousands of eyes on them? How did it feel to do a perfect pirouette in the spotlight, in front of family, peers, and critics? How did it feel to be light and easy on stage, as if being magical? How would it feel to be remembered?

It took me until intermission to realize I was missing something like that in my life—the rush of adrenaline, the feeling of intense euphoria that comes from being in the soft, but powerful glow of the spotlight and showcasing something you have been working on for so long. To this day, nearly two years after that initial ballet performance, I continue to question what the intense feeling of adrenaline must feel like with each US Open Tennis match I watch, or when I read about a big moment in history. How did it feel when Bianca Andreescu beat Serena Williams and literally fell to the ground and laid on the tennis court, heart pounding with victory and joy and muscles sore from utter exhaustion? How did it feel when Barack Obama received confirmation of his presidential title, effectively making history? How does all of that truly feel? I didn’t grow up competing in much, whether it was an art form or a sport, and so, it was hard for me to truly grasp an understanding of that feeling.

I realized I needed a passion project in my life, so I decided to take on this book project. Coincidentally, it had always been a dream of mine when I was younger to write a published book. Growing up, I constantly found myself lost in the words of famous authors, dead and alive, and I so longingly wished to have a book out there full of my words that people would eventually read. Although so much was happening in my life during that time, it felt like I owed it to myself to do it. I needed to have that one thing I could channel a lot of passion and energy into. I wanted to have something that would give me that feeling of glee and excitement.

The Magic Fizzles

Despite this initial burst of passion and energy, I didn’t tell many people about this project. In fact, I barely told anybody about it. I think my hesitation in spreading the news stemmed from my fear of this project failing and going belly up.

What if I don’t end up finishing the book?

What if I encounter writer’s block in the middle of the process?

What if I’m speaking too soon?

Even when we started sharing news during the launch of our precampaign, I was frozen with fear, so afraid to press the Share button on Facebook and other social media platforms.

What will people think? What if they get too excited? What if my book doesn’t live up to all the expectations and thoughts going through people’s minds?

Along with many of my peers, I am not unfamiliar with the pressures society places upon us to be perfect. The expectation placed on us is to avoid fumbles, avoid saying the wrong answers or wrong things, and avoid looking stupid.

Curiosity Fuels Magic, but How Do We Fuel More Curiosity?

This may make it difficult to be the raw, natural curious selves that we are, as asking questions and learning new things will inevitably lead to not knowing answers and being imperfect at the beginning. Every master started as an apprentice. But in today’s society, there are pressures to be a master so quickly, and it is almost expected of us to skip over that awkward, training wheels phase. Because nobody likes looking stupid or seeming out of place.

Take glossophobia, which is the fear of public speaking. Many of us are probably not strangers to the butterflies, the nervous leg bounce, or sweaty palms that come just before we have to step into the spotlight and speak publicly in front of an audience. It is such a common phobia that an estimated seventy-five percent of all people experience some degree of anxiety/nervousness when it comes to public speaking.¹ According to Psychology Today, a factor contributing to people’s phobia of public speaking comes from their beliefs about themselves as speakers. "The fear often arises when people overestimate the stakes of communicating their ideas in front of others, viewing the speaking event as a potential threat to their credibility, image, and chance to reach an audience. Negative views of oneself as a speaker (I am not good at speaking in front of crowds, I am not a good public speaker, I am boring, etc.) can also raise anxiety and augment the fear of speaking in public."²

As another example, social anxiety disorder is defined to be intense anxiety or fear of being judged, negatively evaluated, or rejected in a social or performance situation. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, people with social anxiety disorder may worry about acting or appearing visibly anxious, or being viewed as stupid, awkward or boring. As a result, they often avoid social or performance situations, and when a situation cannot be avoided, they experience significant anxiety and distress. Social anxiety disorder, or SAD, affects approximately fifteen million American adults and is the second most commonly diagnosed anxiety disorder following specific phobia.³

The truth is that most people, to varying degrees, have a fear of being judged.

Aside from looking stupid, sometimes, certain individuals might also feel judged by some of their peers and mentors for their sheer tendency to ask questions. And so, they retreat into themselves and avoid putting up their hand. They aim to appear more perfect to their peers. We all know what people think of the student in class that raises their hand every five minutes to ask a question. They’re often thought to be showing off, or they think they are better or smarter than others.

In psychology, the concept of a persona is a personality that an individual projects to others, as differentiated from the authentic self. The persona these individuals are conveying may not truly contain all of the dimensions of their curiosity. But the desire and the pressure to appear perfect and fit in trumps all.

At the same time, teachers in the education system, along with senior mentors and peers, tell us to Be curious. Ask questions. Teachers tell students to put up their hands, and that no question is a dumb question. We’re trying to grapple with a concept that we don’t understand, but if we are still having trouble with it, what are we told to do? Turn to the person beside us, or go up to the teacher and seek help.

So, it seems we are at a crossroads. It seems we are being fed a different message from society in each ear. The messages coming into one ear from some of our peers tell us to stop asking too many questions, or they question why we are so curious. They might ask us, Why do you need to know? and this might lead to a tendency to refrain from being too curious or too inquisitive so as to avoid judgement. Now, it is important to highlight that this isn’t always the case. Certain stories in this book will highlight fantastic communities that have formed and encouraged each individual’s learning. However, not everybody has something like this, and without this support and nurturing, it can be difficult to fall into a habit of constant exploration, not knowing, and question-asking.

On the flip side, the messages coming into the other ear, more from our authorities and superiors, may be telling us that learning is cool and fun, and that we need to be lifelong learners. We are encouraged to put up our hands to speak up and to always seek out the best answer, not the first answer.

With one side of the seesaw being the pressure to be perfect and the other side being the pressure to be curious, what do we do?

This is the very problem in today’s society, especially for the younger generations. We are afraid to appear imperfect and to be judged, and this harms our innate sense of curiosity. We might be afraid to put our hands up in class because although the teacher said, no question is a dumb question, what if they—and the rest of the class—think ours is? We might be afraid to be that one voice in the boardroom, asking a question about something we don’t know anything about. We might be afraid to try a new class or pick up a new hobby for fear of looking stupid or out of place. It can be hard to ask a question about a trigonometry concept when it seems as if everybody else in the class is understanding it perfectly (or masking their lack of understanding). It can be hard to try out golf when everybody else on the driving range look like seasoned professionals.

This is the dilemma.

Unlock the Curiosity. Uncork the Magic.

Apart from the passion fueling me to do it, I felt compelled to write this book because I, myself, have always been curious. For some reason, I found my natural sense of curiosity just never really went away. In today’s day and age, our curiosity needs cultivation because the push to be outstanding among the crowd is higher than ever. Individuals need to leverage curiosity, using it to grow and change their world.

I realized just how curious I was in my first year of undergraduate university. It was as if suddenly, all this bottled up curiosity that was coming from nowhere was expelling itself. The transition to university was so exciting to me, and now being in an environment that was who-knows-how-many times bigger than my high school, I wanted to make use of it and explore. The curiosity pushed me to apply for things I had never thought I would be interested in. The curiosity pushed me to talk to people I was meeting from all avenues. The curiosity pushed me to attend events and workshops that popped up on a daily basis.

My curiosity—my natural tendency to ask questions has somehow remained unextinguished, and my desire to be the fresh footprints on new paths—has been something I’ve been able to leverage and something that has truly shaped me into the person that I am today.

I felt it was my calling to write this book because I strongly believe in the importance of fostering curiosity and growing it, starting from when an individual is still young. My curiosity flourished in the later years of high school and the early stages of university, which has helped me tremendously. However, at the same time, this can be the time that curiosity is suppressed in individuals. This can be the time when mistakes are dreaded and feared, and it is often when the pressure to appear perfect is strongest. So, we need to grow the curiosity from a younger age, so by the time the individual reaches this important phase, their curiosity makes them unstoppable, instead of having them stop their own curiosity.

Mindful Helplessness

The term mindfully helpless came to me throughout this book writing process after chatting with some people. As individuals, we should focus on allowing ourselves to be helpless and imperfect but doing so mindfully for the purpose of learning and following our curiosity.

Along the same lines, the Taoist concept of Wu Wei is something that was brought to my attention. In Chinese, its literal translation is ‘doing nothing,’ and Wu Wei requires you to do nothing in order to do something.⁴

Commonly the citation of a growing plant is used as an example. Do what you should to a plant to help it grow, whether that is putting it in sunlight, giving it water, or sprinkling it with fertilizer. Once that’s done, now, we begin the practice of Wu Wei. Leave it alone. Let it be, and let it grow on its own. Continuing to play around with it may do more harm than good. In this instance, doing nothing is doing something.

Bringing it back to learning, Wu Wei teaches us to be mindfully helpless. Take a step back, and let your curiosity take its course, especially if you’ve already spent years of your life nurturing it. Don’t fight the curiosity. Don’t get in its way (especially in later years). Instead, let it flourish and carry you forward.

Let it be easy.

Let it be magic.

* * *

Before we dive into