Learn Today and Lead Tommorrow

LEARN TODAY and LEAD TOMMORROW

By

IGN Parikesit Widiatedja,SH.,MHum

Executive Secretary of Udayana University Press

                  Learning is a process where we can share and transfer art, science and technology which can be undertaken by  studying  intentionally and also from our life experience. From studying we can use formal institution both school and campus  as well as nonformal institution such as course and training camp as a means of enhancing our skills. Meanwhile, experience can give us more than study. From our experience which is generally assumed as learning by doing, we can understand about our true life both as a human and a social group. With courtesy of Dale Carnigie, Experience teaches us how to win friends and influence people.

                  Why we must learn? Confucious revealed that learning was like rowing against the current, as soon as you stop, you were swept back. Have you ever heard old proverb that a little learning was a dangerous thing? It is closely related with the turbulence world currently which is fully shown by  degradation of life in many fields. Learning  can make us survive and have principle because we know what must be done in the rest of our life. Will you be a part of drugs community? Will you be a part of lazy warrior? or will you be a part of white collar crime team? Finally, will you be a part of problem or a part of solution? Choice is our hand.

                  We can learn while eating, sleeping and dreaming  that can be learned from everyone. Confucious also emphasized that one of three people would become our teacher. It denoted that he was very humble. Why do not we follow that? For instance, we can learn from baby who wanted to stand up at the first time. Although they were often fail to stand, they always raised up untill they could run and made their parents were proud. It means to be success, we ought have 110% efforts and rises from more than hundreds failure. Likewise, we  can learn from football game because sometimes you become a winner  and sometimes you become a loser.

                  Today, GOD give us a precious gift which is called globalization. We can roam all kinds of information entire the world. Thomas Friedman stated that the impact of globalization made the world of flat. Fortunely, we have a huge and equal opportunity in exploring a lot of information such as economy, law, culture, political and social phenomenon without boundaries. The more you can get information, the more your chance to be a leader in the future. It is a quite simple thing but make a big difference for us.

            Many stories narrated about the world’s leaders were the people who had insatiable will in learning something. For instance, When Theodore Roosevelt the 26th president of the United States died, His assistant found books under his pillow, He was trully aplied a long life learning principle. Beside, his life experience was very thrilling when  his mother and his wife died on the same day. Can we imagine? What did he feel at that time?

            Read this true story. When he was young, he worked  as a clerk in food shop. In daily life he wore old crumple cloth and absolutely looked like a bum. However, he had an eager will to learn law materials. He was very delighted when he found a lot of law books in the bin of his neighbor house. He paid only 50 cent for all those books. Beside, He also has had unforgettable stories when he was  a child.  One of the story was the death of his mother. Who was he? He was Abraham Lincoln the16th president of the United States.

            Adam malik story a man who only graduated from elementary school and when he was a child assisted his father on small shoddy shop, should become other role model for us. He enjoyed his daily life merely for reading books especially in related with diplomatic affairs. Today we know Adam Malik as former chairman of General Assembly Meeting of United Nations in New York, former head of Indonesia’s House of Representative and former of Indonesia’s Vice President. Although he had been slandered as  agent of CIA, it could not wipe his dedication as one of our founding father in our beloved country.

            From all those inspiring stories, it is unmistakable that a sucessful leader was an arden reader with overwhelm information. It would not come in an overnight process but it would come significantly from sustainable process based on noble commitment, discipline and perseverance. Learning everything give us an enourmous benefit in the future because what we learn that make us grow. John Maxwell the author of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership unveiled that if we wanted to be a future leader, we must learn a lot in the present. It can be inferred that all process must be done  intensively and sustainably. Eventually, as a rule, he or she who has the most information by learning everything will has the greatest chance to be a leader in the future.