r/lifelonglearning

Until now, I'm still unemployed due to my profession's lesser opportunities, and I am going to study for my medschool next year. So, I spent my time doomscrolling to social media platforms since I don't have many things to do. But it changed when I was diagnosed with ADHD and have to take meds. I also suspected myself that I have GAD due to being worrisome, and I have extreme negative thoughts.

So what I did is that I deactivated my other social media accounts to have a social media detox. I did exercises, made homemade yogurt, and others. Currently, I went to a keycap workshop, and molding an air dry clay was awesome. This is when I discovered that I love doing art and I was just burned out after college. I also tried to watch movies every day and did film reviews afterward.

To most people who are already tired and burned out, don't give up on the things you love the most. Lessen doomscrolling and rest to avoid burnout❤️

Hello! I'm 32, italian, I want to learn English but I feel like I need to speak it every day to actually improve.

I tried language exchange, but it doesn't work well for me, a lot of the time it's 1 hour split into 30/30, once a week, and that's just not enough.

I feel like what I need is to find someone who wants to learn the same topics I'm interested in, and who speaks English, so we can share tips on that topic and just keep speaking English together regularly, not a strict 30/30 split, but an ongoing conversation.

I really want to improve. I feel stuck. I'm trying to get ready for job interviews in English and it's honestly kind of stressful.

Topics I can talk about: architecture, cities/urban planning, product management.

I'm also interested in investing,Ai, books, and films.

Does anyone have suggestions, apps, communities, or people in a similar situation? Would love to find a regular practice partner.

Thanks a lot

I’ve been thinking about the things people keep learning even when free time gets squeezed. Some interests disappear first, while others still get a little attention because you genuinely miss them when you stop. What skill or subject keeps surviving your busiest weeks?

We often focus on learning things for career advancement personal growth or practical benefits. Those are great motivations but sometimes the best learning comes from pure curiosity.

What is a seemingly trivial or niche topic you decided to learn about just because it interested you? It could be anything from the history of rubber bands to the intricacies of mushroom foraging or the physics of spinning a basketball.

What did you learn and what unexpected satisfaction or insights did it bring you? I am curious about the joy of learning for its own sake rather than for any specific outcome.

I used to think biology was mostly memorizing names of organs and processes. Then I found out how ridiculously weird living things actually are.

A few facts that completely changed how I see biology:

• Your body is constantly replacing itself. Many of the cells in your body are replaced over time, while others can stick around for decades. You're basically a constantly rebuilt version of yourself.
• Your stomach doesn't digest itself. It produces extremely strong acid, but its lining has protective mechanisms that help keep the acid from destroying the stomach itself.
• Some plants can “communicate.” When attacked by insects, certain plants release chemicals into the air that can trigger defensive responses in neighboring plants.
• Your mitochondria have their own DNA. The “powerhouses of the cell” aren't just another random cell component. They have their own genetic material, which is one of the biggest clues to their ancient evolutionary origin.
• Octopuses are basically evolutionary aliens. They have three hearts, blue blood, and a nervous system so unusual that a huge proportion of their neurons are located in their arms.
• Your immune system has memory. After encountering some pathogens, certain immune cells can “remember” them, allowing your body to respond much faster the next time.
• There are more bacterial cells living in and on you than you might expect. Your body is an ecosystem, not just a collection of human cells.

And that's the crazy part: these aren't even the weirdest things biology has to offer.

The deeper you go, the more biology starts feeling less like memorizing facts and more like discovering how unbelievably strange life actually is.

What biology fact made you suddenly realize, “okay, this subject is actually fascinating”?

Some lessons only make sense after you experience them yourself. What did life teach you that no book conversation or warning could have prepared you for?

Some things about human nature are difficult to understand from the outside. What is one realization about people that experience taught you?

I have been thinking about education as a one-to-many system. A teacher has to work with many students at once, even though each person arrives with different prior knowledge and gets stuck at different points.

But I do not think the answer is to turn education into one student alone with an AI. Learning is also social: discussing, collaborating, seeing how other people think and having a teacher who gives direction.

What interests me is whether the individual experience around the same knowledge could become more personal. The source and objective could stay shared, while the explanation, interface, practice and feedback adapt as the person learns.

I am building an open-source project around this idea, but I am still trying to understand the boundary. What should become personal, and what would education lose if it stopped being shared?

Have you ever had something happen that you genuinely thought was going to ruin your life, only to realize years later that it changed your direction?

I had something like that happen to me. At the time, I couldn't see anything positive in it. I was mostly angry and wondering why it had to happen to me.

But it forced me to make some choices I probably would've kept avoiding. I met different people, changed some priorities, and ended up going down a path I never would've chosen otherwise.

I wouldn't say I'm grateful that it happened. I still wish it had happened differently.

But I am grateful for who I became afterward.

Has something you hated going through at the time ever ended up changing your life in a way you didn't expect?

What are people doing to be intelligent? I feel like I can no longer think or do anything. I tried to write an email and it genuinely felt like torture. How can I build back what I’ve lost over the years because of lack of sleep and excessive screen use. I’m new to college and I have a broken ankle so I need my brain to be very very very sharp. My dream is to make it to a T10 medical school but right now I’m unmotivated and I can’t think. I can’t write, I can’t comprehend books that aren’t fantasy. Can someone please tell me what smart people are doing so I can start? What habits and hobbies should I try? I want to be able to think again.

not sure how to explain this but sometimes i just want to stumble on stuff i didn't even know i wanted to know, if that makes sense. like not "learn python" or whatever, more the random stuff you didn't know existed.

scrolling random subreddits or random apps doesn't really do it, it just keeps feeding me the same kind of stuff. anyone else get this urge? what do you actually do about it

No college, no work, no responsibilities.

What do you actually do?

I’m trying to find better ways to spend my free time instead of spending 5–6 hours just scrolling on my phone 😂 Give me some ideas.