Don't be a complacent learner!

So I'm not sure if any of you looked at Candice's commencement speech she forwarded to us.

If you remember, she had talked about how most people can't "name the thing you're going to be," but that you have to "back into" whatever you choose to do. It was really worth the 5-10 minutes it takes to read.

If I only remember one thing from the speech (which is pretty likely, considering the limits of memory), it's the speaker's (Robert Krulwich) description of his mother's interest in movies. As she had loved movies her entire life, she made extra efforts to see the newest films, just so she could share her passion with her grandchildren. She didn't want to be the grandma completely out of the loop.

The thing is, this became rather tricky, as the movie-going process became more complicated. She explains how (you can read about it), but what I took away was her response. She chose to learn, whether it be about computers, debit cards, or as she puts it, "the attractiveness of vampires." She did this because she refused to get swept away, just because the world was becoming a stranger place.

I just thought it was a fantastic way of putting learning in its appropriate context, in that we cannot become complacent with what we already take to be fact. Change management is pretty tricky, but taking this grandma's perspective seems like a smart move to me.