You Have to Constantly Learning

I want to change your mindset from "you have to constantly learning" to "you are already constantly learning." Trust me.

What is learning?

If you search on the internet and read books, you notice that learning means changes happen in your life. The learning materials can come from various things, such as your experience, someone else's stories, and the books you have read. But in reality, you change every day. That is the fact.

When you wake up in the morning today, you get a bit older. You are now equipped with the experience that you get from yesterday. You may not feel drastic changes, such as becoming rich. But you learn how to live from yesterday's experience. You are not aware of it because you are on autopilot. You stop paying attention to tiny details. Your appreciation is gone.

I want you to remember as much as possible about your life. You can not remember everything. I can not do that either. But I remember when I finally succeeded in making a personal website because I was so happy. I remember when I was travelling because I felt excited. I remember when I got my first laptop because I could start developing a website and learning about web development. I was having so much fun. Based on those, we can only remember an experience once it has an emotional attachment. This is why if you hate someone so much, you can not forget that person.

But learning sometimes has nothing to do with feeling. As long as you change, you are learning. Although the changes are not huge, you have learned something. Although the result is not visible yet, you have learned one or two things every single day. For example, you often forget where you put a key. You often struggle to find it. But when you realize that you keep struggling, you solve the problem by putting the key in the same place every time you use it. As a result, you no longer need to struggle to find your key. That is learning, my friend, although it is not a big deal. But you have changed.

Why is there no appreciation?

I know that people do not care about small things because of the internet and social media. Small achievements do not get exposure. Even if they are exposed, people will just say, "So what?" But that is not completely a bad thing.

People do not care at all if you are not famous. Who are you, anyway? You are not famous. You are not rich. You have no connection to powerful people. Nobody cares. But if you are rich and have influence over people, whatever you do, people will follow it. Even if they do not follow you, at least they know your name.

I post that I have finally developed the best CSS color system, and very few people care. That is the fact. Who is Hanno Zhuan? Not so many people know. In fact, nobody cares so much about me yet. But I know smart people and great people care about it because they learn from everybody who is worthy.

Anyway, society promotes high expectations and respects tremendous results. Small achievements are often ignored. Although you change every day, nobody will notice that. That is fine. I am not saying that people should care about others even to the tiniest detail. But appreciation from other people is not needed to learn. We can not demand appreciation from others. If you have someone who appreciates you and motivates you, that is great. But if you do not have that person, that is fine.

Visible and clear changes do not always need to happen. As long as you know that you are learning, you have changed. You need to appreciate yourself first, otherwise, why would someone appreciate you?

Why do you feel pressure?

I was under so much pressure when I was a teenager. I watched lots of motivational videos. Instead of getting motivated, I got stressed. Those videos present people shouting like crazy. They keep saying that you must do this or you must do that. They are insane.

I am a web developer. When I open my homepage, I see lots of people sharing their achievements. They make projects. They learn something new. They get great comments. Then, I look at my X page, and it is empty. It is like a graveyard. My great time is not coming yet.

You may have the same problem. You have a social media account, and you keep seeing people posting their great achievements. They get tons of likes. But when you post something, nobody cares. But let me tell you this: you do not need to care whether nobody cares or some people care. You can choose to ignore that nobody cares because this moment is temporary.

Now I enjoy the process. I know that when people start coming, I can not have an empty comment section anymore. I will not have that ever again. I am aware that if I am now at zero, the only way is to go up. I can not have fewer than zero followers. The only way is to have more followers.

Simply, you feel pressure because nobody is cheering you up. Thus, you do not enjoy learning. Otherwise, no matter how painful what you are doing, you will be able to handle the pressure easily.

How do you remove the pressure of learning every day?

I can enjoy my learning progress. These are ways for me to make learning enjoyable without relying on other people's compliments:

• Make learning natural. You learn every day, whether you like it or not. But you can choose to be aware that you have learned every day. The only day you stop learning is when you die. Naturally, you learn every day.
• Reduce your learning capacity. If you get overwhelmed because you learn too much, you can learn a little bit less. If you get tired because of five hours of reading books, reduce it to four hours and thirty minutes. Experiment as much as you like. You can reduce the capacity until you feel okay. But do not tell me that zero minutes of reading a book makes you feel okay.
• Every day is different. I know that you will not have the same day every day. Thus, you need to adapt to adjust your learning. But if you have a different one, you are actually learning to adapt. You are learning by adapting, and you have no other choice but to adapt, right?
• Personalize your learning. Your reality is different from others. Others can say that they learn an hour a day. Some can say they learn in three hours. But they are not you. Thus, you should not treat their advice as your own guideline.
• Reduce, simplify, and normalize learning. You reduce learning by appreciating what you have learned. You simplify learning by doing what works for you naturally. You normalize learning by doing the process.
• Do not love the process if you can not love it. I do not enjoy reading books. But I do not have to enjoy reading to keep reading books. I can keep yawning while reading programming books. The programming books are boring. But it does not have to be fun like watching Kamala Harris' non-sense phrases. You do not need to always love the process. Sometimes, you just need to go through the process, and that is totally fine.
• Be patient. One second is one second. One hour is one hour. Sometimes, it feels so fast. You might be doing something pleasant that one hour feels like one minute. That is great. I never complained when I had such a moment. But one minute can feel like one year when you are suffering. Remember that when you go through hell, make sure you keep going. You do not want to stay in hell. You need to get out of it. Keep moving. Moving slowly is better than not moving at all. Crawling is better than standing still.

What have you learned?

You have learned something. I hope you can use what you have learned to your benefit.

Share this with your friends so that they can thank you later. Feel free to tell what you have learned. If you like this or do not like this, please do let me know.

Happy learning! Don't stop learning until you die.