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The 3 Phases of Life
Learn -> Earn -> Give During a training session at my first job, the guest facilitator (lawyer in his 50s) spoke about his philosophy on the different phases of life. He saw 3 distinct phases, each taking up roughly one 3rd of 90 years – learning, earning, and giving. Learn – developing yourself is absolutely crucial. Avoid experiences that are focused on “grinding” for making money. Earn – focus on earning a (moral and sustainable) livelihood, so that you can support giving/mentoring phase. Give – focus on mentoring, giving back, and ideally making the world a better place, not just for yourself, but for those that come after. To be honest, something about this never sat right with me. While the simplicity is appealing for comprehension and integration into life, I haven’t really been satisfied with the fragmented nature of this phased approach. Ideally, you should be able to establish a way to do all 3 at the same time. Learning should be a worthy endeavor for it’s own sake (interesting, fun), not because it allows you to generate more income. What happens to our ability to improve when we stop learning? When we think what we know or what we’re doing is good enough?
