Always be learning…

Have you ever seen Glengarry Glen Ross?

It’s a classic. I’ll give you the highlights.

There’s a bunch of aging sales reps at a dying company, pounding out the same dead leads from people who filled out a card in the back of a magazine. The company brings in a sales trainer, played by Alec Baldwin, to whip everybody into shape with a sales contest. The winner gets a Cadillac… the loser gets fired. Or something like that.

Alec Baldwin gives everyone a motivational speech, explaining the “ABC’s of sales.”

A: Always
B : Be
C: Closing

Always be closing. Always be closing.

There. That’s the highlight of the movie. That single scene has been hashed out and replayed in sales offices across America for years.

Anyway, I’d like to modify that phrase a little bit. Let’s change it to “Always be learning.” That’s a real way to live.

It’s rather hard to boil my life down to one set of defining principles. As I grow and change, my principles do the same. Things that felt right for me to do ten years ago might not feel right today. And in another ten years, I expect the same will be true. Obviously there’s some basic rules that will always be there, like don’t murder people, but different life circumstances often call for different guiding philosophies.

Philosophy, and most of morality for that matter, is a luxury that only the comfortable can afford. Is it morally wrong to steal? Yes. But if you are starving, you will steal food. Survival often comes first. That’s an extreme example, I know.

With that said, the one thing I hope I don’t stop doing in the future is to continue learning. If I go through a day without learning something new, that’s been a day wasted.