Learn.

‘Ay, Alam ko na yan!’

What you appreciate, you don’t stop learning about. If you stop on something you say you’re passionate about, it’s clear that your passion is not where you say, but more on you.

I see this as human nature: For us to be as the peacock who immediately spreads his feathers to impress, more instinctively, then, unfortunately, naturally. We are taught at a young age to secure our reputation, only to come out looking more insecure.

To play the know-it-all may work as a bluff – but Asians, much more Filipinos, and much more Baguio people, are not easily impressed.

However, be warned. Our propensity towards going against human instinct to be impressed at first glance may be a benefit on its own. But if it is cultivated one too many times, the cynicism we once used as defense may also come out of us naturally. We then become as those we spurn, only we became know-it-alls through a different path.

Customizing our responses depending on the people we deal with does have its benefits – but through my experience, know-it-all’s always lose. Give them enough time, and eventually the people will see through their bullshit.

No, what I propose today is for us to be learn-it-all’s: understanding that there will always be someone better than you, and that there will always be something new to learn, something good to maintain, something ordinary to improve.

To know it all is overrated. To learn it all is of infinitely superior value.

In Christ, we have all the reason to learn: Simply because a finite being could never say they know all there is to know about an infinite existence.

Much better to respond with humility. Much better to understand we cannot know it all, and the better way is to trust in the One who does know it all.

And it is in awe of the infinitely superior Christ that we do not stop learning.

See, the key to initiative, practice, preparation, perseverance and courage may be to have a vision – but it is the humility to be amazed in the one who gives us sight that has our eyes open for all angles.

This has us responding to the arrogant and the well-intentioned alike, with teachability.

For teachability is the humility to understand we cannot know it all and we cannot grasp it all.

Wonder is the proper focus on the infinite, versus what is finite.

Wonder is the underlying motivation for teachability.

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom – Socrates