Continuing Education.

Why a commitment to your continued education will help you personally and professionally.

Knowledge is power.  It represents liberation. Without knowledge you can be taken advantage of and duped into doing things that are counterproductive. And the worst part is, you won’t even know it.

No one is perfect and there is always room for improvement. This is why Humanists are lifelong learners and advocates of continuing education in the form of personal and professional development.

Not all educational opportunities are alike. There is a tremendous amount of woo being peddled by self help gurus and life coaches. Woo is a derogatory term for non-science based nonsense peddled as knowledge.  All too often, people looking to improve themselves are led astray by peddlers of woo. This is why the self help movement has such a bad reputation. People are being taken advantage of by charlatans and they don’t even know it!

An example of woo is the positive thinking movement that is based on the book, The Secret. The idea that all you have to do is have faith and trust and a little bit of pixie dust and suddenly what you wish for will materialize is a nice thought, but it doesn’t work in the real world. Last time I checked, wishing didn’t work too well. If you want someone to send you a check in the mail, you have to do something to earn it.

Now, you may be wondering why I am picking on the positive thinking movement. It’s harmless right. And why not be positive? Well, that’s the problem with woo. It isn’t harmless. People spend money to learn the techniques. They spend time trying to solve their problems by thinking the right thoughts. They police their thoughts in an effort to think correctly. All of this is time, energy and money that isn’t being spent on fixing whatever problem you have. The worst part is that not only does this not work, you can’t get a refund! If you complain it didn’t work you will be told that it’s your fault. The coach or guru never has to issue a refund for teaching something that didn’t work. Sure it works for them. They may even be true believers. But they still suckered someone out of their money and then blamed them for their failure. That’s cruel and abusive, especially given the financial hardships people have faced recently.

It’s time to get real 

My point is that if you really want to improve you need to find teachers that will teach you reality based pragmatic approaches that will actually help you learn what you need to do to succeed. What you need is practical science based knowledge. Not woo based non-science.

Magical thinking doesn’t cut it in the real world. Whether it is a science based approach to getting the bullies and other obnoxious people in your life to stop, or a science based approach to mental health. Getting practical information that is based not just on anecdotes but on actual science will help.

I founded my company Humanist Learning Systems to provide exactly this sort of science based, humanistic education. Check out what we offer at: https://humanistlearning.com/programsoffered/

Learning how to tell the difference between woo and reality based approaches, is priceless. If you want to learn how to do this more effectively, then I recommend my 6 hour program – Living Made Simpler (http://humanistlearning.info/livingmadesimpler1/)

What is Learning?

What is learning and why should you bother to learn stuff?

Most Humanists I know are voracious learners. And by voracious I mean we are interested in everything and in learning all that we can learn. Given that there is a lot to learn it’s a never ending quest.

Not only are Humanists interested in learning, we are also interested in learning how we learn so that we can better learn. Is your head hurting yet?

The reason Humanists engage in all this learning is because by learning, we gain new knowledge. By learning we come to know things. By learning, we come to be able to do new things and acquire new skills. By learning, we come to understand better.

Humans are an interesting creature. We are capable of instinctual behavior, but we are also capable of learning new behaviors. And these new behaviors are really very helpful in the quest for survival and reproduction. In a word, learning is very sexy (in a survival of the fittest sort of way). People who know how to learn have a better chance of survival.

When you think of it, there is no downside to learning. True, it can be difficult at times, but that shouldn’t stop us. Because it turns out that the more you learn, the funner learning becomes.

Why are Humanists lifelong learners? Because Humanism is the applied study of what it means to be a good Human being.  In some ways, Humanism is the best of what we've learned so far and what we continue to learn.