Naval Ravikant Quote on Education and Why The Desire To Learn Is So Scarce

“Even today, what to study and how to study it are more important than where to study it and for how long. The best teachers are on the Internet. The best books are on the Internet. The best peers are on the Internet. The tools for learning are abundant. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.”

Naval Ravikant, Medium

Beyond the Quote (231/365)

This is (arguably) one of the main reasons why so many people subject themselves to expensive educations—because they don’t have a strong enough desire to learn on their own. Assuming higher education isn’t a necessary prerequisite for the career they desire (doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc.), as Naval points out above, all of the best information is already available. With a strong enough desire to learn, a way can almost always be found.

What tends to happen, however, is that people get distracted. And understandably so. Their TVs, computers, phones, and even watches call for their attention for a majority of their day. They beep, ping, ring, vibrate, remind, track, and notify constantly. And those are just the distractions that we give permission to distract us! This isn’t even to mention the bombardment of advertisements, the constant stream of gossipy/ dramatic news, the click-bait schemes, and the human extension of all of the aforementioned that comes to us via conversation that we didn’t want to distract us, but does so anyway. Our world is a raging storm of endless distractions. And the storm is out to suck the life right out of us—literally.

What’s the big deal with distractions? You might ask. They prevent you from doing deep work. The work that you can only do when you enter a state of complete focus, that allows you to ride trains of uninterrupted thought, and dive deep into ideas that can’t be gripped superficially. Deep work is the type of work that schools try and force you to do. Why? Because at the heart of all learning is deep work. Distractions are the antithesis of deep work. And the battle between distractions and deep work is over one of the most important commodities you have in your life—your attention.

Why is attention so valuable? Because where you direct your attention is where you direct your most valuable life resources: your time, energy, and effort. The more time you spend soaking in advertisements for designer clothes (whether directly from commercials or indirectly through conversations), for example, the more likely you’ll be to expend the energy and effort required to obtain them (even if that means working 3 jobs at minimum wage). And on the flip side, the more time you spend learning how to properly invest your money, the more likely you’ll be to expend your energy and effort in alignment with those learned principles.

This is one of devastating effects of distractions—they dilute the desire to learn. And it isn’t that social media, news, gossip, and drama is intentionally out to dilute people’s desires to learn—I genuinely don’t believe that’s the case. Rather, it’s just that people’s attention is so valuable. And in today’s interconnected, digital world—attention is up for grabs. We live in the middle of this storm where people are scrambling every day in a mad, free-for-all, desperate kind of way to grab as much attention as they can. And the more you fall for people’s ploys to grab your attention, the less you’ll invest into your deep work and the less you’ll be able to reinforce your desire to learn.

This is why you have to wake up to the storm that’s raging around you right now. It isn’t the type of storm that destroys homes in one sweeping blow. It’s the type of storm that sucks the life out of you in small, barely-noticeable, chipping-away blows. Your attention is your life force. How you choose to direct your attention is how you choose to direct your life. If you continue to choose to let your attention drain away in distractions, then so will be your life. If you choose to invest your attention into the best teachers, the best books, the best peers, and the best information that’s available to you, then so will be your life. Stay woke. Eliminate distractions. Keep your desire to learn burning strong. Keep reinvesting in yourself. And live your life intentionally.

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