The Importance of Lifelong Learning — When Is the Last Time You Did Something for the First Time?

T here’s a moment in every adult’s life when we quietly stop being beginners. We trade the awkwardness of learning for the comfort of mastery. We become efficient, reliable, and polished. And yet, in that very comfort, something essential begins to fade.

Children are experts at being new. Every day of childhood is spent stumbling, fumbling, and trying again. Riding a bike. Learning to read. Tackling long division. None of it came easily, and much of it came with anxiety. But in those messy beginnings were also the spark of friendships, the thrill of discovery, and the resilience of trying again after failure.

So why do we stop?

The answer is both simple and profound: being new is uncomfortable. And as adults, we are wired to avoid discomfort. But our brains are wired differently — they