The need to learn
And choosing "enlargement" over happiness
I am a graduate of the University of Virginia. Founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819, the university still clings to traditions — some good, some less so. There’s a student-run honor system, a reverence for historic architecture and a vocabulary specific to the school. The central quad is called “the Lawn,” graduation is called “Final Exercises,” and while lots of schools now say “first year” instead of “freshman” to avoid gendered language, UVA has been doing this for more than 200 years. Supposedly, this is the thinking: Jefferson believed education was a lifelong process, so to call yourself a “senior” — which implies that you’re in your last year of learning — is ridiculous. At UVA, freshmen are first years, sophomores are second years, and so on. It’s a bit pretentious, but I appreciate the tone it sets — and the humility of recognizing that there’s still a lot to learn after you “walk the Lawn” (i.e., receive your diploma). At 53, I’m a 35th year. (I think. I didn’t study math.) And I’m definitely still learning.
While Maslow didn’t explicitly name learning on his famous hierarchy of needs, I think it falls under self-actualization, which, as you may have noticed, sits at the very tippy top of the pyramid. Learning may not feel essential, but if you think about, I’ll bet you have noticed when you weren’t learning: The classes where you feel like you weren’t learning anything new were boring. The jobs where you don’t acquire new skills and aren’t exposed to new ideas aren’t engaging. And the relationships that don’t help you grow are the least rewarding. We all need to learn, and that need doesn’t disappear when our formal schooling ends.
At work, if I’m not learning and growing, I’m not happy. In fact, this is a big part of why I left my last job. I loved my team, and the work we did was exciting. But I was always the best writer in the room. To be fair, only a few of us had “writer” in our job title and I had the most experience. But the point is that there wasn’t anyone who could teach me to be a better writer (though there were plenty of other people to teach me other things). And writing, I realized, was what I cared about. So I left. (I’m oversimplifying it a bit. But for the purposes of this essay, please accept this as the full story.)
Now I’m at Cog, where I am never the best writer in the room. It’s humbling, but it’s also very exciting. And that excitement keeps me engaged. (It’s also a job — and a platform — that may soon disappear.)
But sometimes learning isn’t that obvious. Sometimes we fail to recognize when (and how) we are learning. For years, I felt less than because I wasn’t particularly interested in trying new things — in taking up a new sport or understanding some arcane topic in the news. When someone pointed out this avoidance to me, I initially agreed with them. “You’re right,” I said. And that became a story I told myself about myself: I don’t like to learn things.
But that story wasn’t true. It took me a few years to realize this, but one day as I was installing a Nest thermostat or making a custom cake for a Thomas the Tank Engine-themed birthday party or researching brain surgery for my child, I thought, “I try new stuff all the time. It’s just not always by choice.” More often than not, I was learning new things because someone else needed me to.
For a time — actually, for quite a long time — all the involuntary learning that comes with default parenthood suppressed my desire for voluntary learning. I can see that now.
But today, in this new stage of life, where I have more free time and fewer lessons being imposed on me, my desire for learning new things is back. And it needs some direction.
There are all sorts of jokes about how in middle age you have to choose between pickleball and Mahjong, CrossFit and yoga, gardening and sourdough. Presented with these choices, none of which get me super excited (though I do dabble in yoga), I start believing that old story again. Maybe I don’t like trying new things.
But maybe I just haven’t found the right new things to try.
What, I ask myself, would make me happy? And then, almost immediately, I remember that happiness isn’t the thing to chase.
On September 4, 2020, Oliver Burkeman wrote his final installment of “This Column Will Change Your Life” in the Guardian. In it, Burkeman — author of “Four Thousand Weeks” — shared eight secrets to a fulfilled life. This is the one that stuck with me:
When stumped by a life choice, choose “enlargement” over happiness. I’m indebted to the Jungian therapist James Hollis for the insight that major personal decisions should be made not by asking, “Will this make me happy?”, but “Will this choice enlarge me or diminish me?”
The idea is that humans aren’t that great at predicting what will make us happy and thinking about enlargement elicits a more intuitive, more honest response. “You tend to just know whether, say, leaving or remaining in a relationship or a job, though it might bring short-term comfort, would mean cheating yourself of growth,” Burkeman wrote.
Of course, if you’re really lucky, you get enlargement and happiness, like I did when I taught myself how to use Substack, and started sending this newsletter.
Here’s to learning new things,
Also on my mind
Someone please buy this tile, put it in your bathroom and then invite me over.
It’s an age-old debate: does listening to an audiobook count as reading?
I’m not a dog person, but I love the idea of dog-walking fashion. “When I have my handsome shih tzu trotting by my side, I can go out in the most unhinged ensembles and nobody seems bothered,” writes Kate Leaver. “I am invisible, I am untouchable, I am immune to the judgment of others because I am out with my dog.”
Seven tricky work situations and how to respond to them from the Harvard Business Review. I wish #5 were about work performance instead of halitosis.
I adore Rob Delaney (author of the devastating memoir, “A Heart That Works,” and co-creator of the hilarious TV show, “Catastrophe.” Don’t miss him on the Modern Love podcast.
The best sentences I read this week came from
over at :The devastating thing about having a child is that the child is always folding themselves up, putting themselves away, and taking out a new self you have never met before. This happens every day. You fall in love with a person who is in love with vampire bats and digging holes, and you wake up next to a person who only wants to wear a spacesuit and go to the moon. You don’t ask for any of this, and you can’t keep it.
An opinion piece from Ken Jennings? Yes, please! “Jeopardy!’ Is a Reminder That Facts Are Fun — and Essential.”
Getting bored with your summer dresses? Don’t forget about the “wrong shoe theory.”
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Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browserPulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder says America is unraveling its safety net: “A New Era of Hunger Has Begun.”
And, finally, this week’s poem, from Same, which comes out in October:
Sisters on the telephone — by Hannah Rosenberg I called you yesterday and we fought back and forth, each of us stubborn and firm. We hung up in a fury but today we forgot. Then I called and we laughed back and forth about your babies or mine. What they said or did, something so normal that no one would listen but us. You called with advice and I argued against it but then I called back for more. You called earlier and had nothing to say so I walked to the store while you answered an email and then I continued with my day. I nearly forgot you were on the phone and just as I was about to hang up I said are you still there? You said, I am.
Hi Kate, I love your essays, lists, and the short poems you share. I’ve noticed that there (always?) seems to be a typo in the poem, and I wonder if this is intentional? There are never errors anywhere else in your work! Curious. x Wendy
I always learn so much from your newsletters. Thank you for making me more educated, cultured, and interesting!