“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.” The common take on continuous learning is that we can acquire new knowledge from new domains to improve our exposure to various new ideas and fields. Constant learning is also a common trait found in exceptional people such as Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein and many more. Elon Musk is proficient in so many domains (just take a look at his ventures), thanks to his god-like learning ability. However, why would employers dislike “learning passion” during a job interview? To look into this issue, a fresh perspective from Martial Arts would be very interesting. The current trend in the Martial Arts field is Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) with the stand of MMA being more practical in self-defense and competition duels. One of the strong rationales behind the trend is the diversity of MMA. In MMA, you’re bound to learn more than one type of Martial Arts. For instance, a MMA lesson could be integrating kicks from Taekwondo, punching from Boxing, throwing from Judo and groundworks from BJJ. At a glance, MMA is like a combination of advantages from different Martial Arts. Thus, MMA has garnered attention from many eyes, especially among the total beginners of Martial Arts. While there are plenty of merits in MMA, many people tend to overlook one important fact. This missing piece of fact is the same reason why employers would tend to filter out those who claim to like learning in any job interview. To be good in any field, be it in Martial Arts, culinary arts, driving, sports, gaming or even in academics, one would need to invest a considerable amount of time and effort. If it takes years of training (assuming you’re practising a minimum of 2 - 4 hours per week) to reach Black Belt in a single Martial Art, what about being proficient in MMA? Bruce Lee has once said "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." Between a Black Belt of a single Martial Art and a White Belt of multiple Martial Arts disciplines, who would pose bigger threats? In our learning journey, it is good to be exposed to various domains but it is very bad if we do not have a solid foundation in either one of the domains. Even Elon Musk does not start all of his ventures at the same time, it takes him ten years to begin his empire one by one. Our legendary martial artist, Bruce Lee learned multiple Martial Arts one by one throughout his life before developing his own MMA, the famous Jeet Kune Do. The benefits of being well-versed in multiple domains only come when we have developed significant insights in each of these domains, that we are able to integrate knowledge from different domains into critical knowledge. In fact, one can only be considered as proficient in a domain after he has developed insights and experience of his own. Learning is unlike browsing various TV channels to see if any channel is showing any interesting programme. A proper learning process requires a well-defined purpose and objective. This is why some could learn much faster than others, appearing to be more talented than the rest. As the job market is getting more competitive than ever, there is no doubt that “learning passion” has become one of the top phrases in CVs. With “learning passion” being spammed in so many CVs, we need to show some concrete proofs to justify our “learning passion”. After all, employers are not interested in white belts of multiple fields, compared to a Black Belt in a specialised domain. This is also why university degrees tend to be more specialized as we move up the academic ladder.
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