“It’s not that I know a lot more than everybody else; it’s that I want to know more.”

A very wise woman said these words to me, and I have breathed them in ever since.

If you have that desire—that spark—to dedicate a minute, an hour, a day, or your life to learning, amazing things can and will change. This doesn’t mean sitting in a classroom and listening to lectures, this means immersing yourself in new situations, new places, new conversations, and new perspectives.

I plan to live with this mindset for the rest of my life. The smallest changes in my daily routine teach me so much; I have learned from these experiences and learned to take bigger, and bigger risks.

Listen to This American Life, eat a chocolate mousse cake for a snack, be a Buddhist for a day, move to Indonesia, backpack, read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime over and over again, laugh too often, cry even more, smile, befriend a stranger, embarrass yourself, swap music with a friend, speak Mandarin, compliment somebody for no reason, learn.

Share this mindset. And share it with me. Tell me your stories, how to learn, who to learn from, what to learn, and what I can teach others.

In the wise words of the very same woman, “Sharing is the second hardest thing in life, the first is finding people to share with.”

Yours truly,


Lila Rimalovski, 15
lilaslistserve@gmail.com
New Jersey