Earlier in the thirty-eighth episode of the first season of the Shams Academy Podcast, I presented a program entitled “What and How to Learn?”. Also in the eleventh episode of the second season of this podcast, I mentioned to write an article about education and its difference with learning. In this article, I will concentrate a little more on these issues and I will fulfill that promise. We often train or pursue our personal studies to gain knowledge and awareness and to increase our knowledge. Of course, we have another goal that for most people, this goal is a priority and even urgency: the foundations of life such as getting good marks (in school) and finding a better job. 

Does formal education bring happiness?

Before answering this question, we need to know the concept of happiness. We will definitely talk about happiness later, and since I do not want to get out of the subject of this article, I will only provide a definition of it: Happiness is a state that keeps a person completely and constantly satisfied without being dependent on something else. I wanted to talk about the relationship between formal education and happiness, but as it is clear now, the definition of happiness also has a clear answer to that question. But for the readers who follow my courses academically, I explain that formal education, with all its undeniable traits and benefits, can certainly not directly lead to human happiness. It may be the cause (the necessary condition), but it alone does not guarantee happiness (it is not the sufficient condition).

What should we learn?

What makes us happy! And if we ask what makes us happy, the answer would be “what we enjoy.” In other words, if you are exposed to training contents that you do not enjoy, those never lead you to happiness, definitely. So if you do not avoid it, wasting your time will be the least consequence. This condition will be exacerbated if you receive trainings from someone or something or a system that needs to be modified!

How to learn?

Patiently and wisely! While learning, we need to be patient. Give what we learn a chance to take place in our spirit. It is not possible to set a timeline to this, because it will be different to everyone. The next point is that in order to learn effectively, we should not move on to the next content until we understand the earlier well. So we can say it now: learn patiently, wisely and lovingly to become happy.