What Do You Mean by Life-Long Learner?

Overheard a lady today talking/complaining about the difficulty in finding a job.  I don't know if her lack of employment was due to attitude, or the business cycle.  I felt for her.

What struck me though, was her statement that she was educated and that not being able to find a job made no sense.  Don't know what level of education she was speaking of, but she seemed confident of it's ability to garner a good job.

The expectation of completed education providing a well paved road to a job is a problem.

In the age (early 21st century) we live in you'd be well served to be a life-long learner.  I define this as someone who continually seeks to gain knowledge-formal or informal.  Life-long learners seek to apply what they learn and they understand the art of "process."  The art of process is the idea of no arrivals or destinations. 

Here are some tips for becoming/staying a life-long learner:

1. Expect challenges and don't get comfortable.
2. Explore areas you wouldn't normally seek out.  For example, buy a book on economic cycles over the last 50 years.  By doing this you'll gain understanding on how our economy ebbs and flows.  Who knows you might stop connecting your future career condition to Obama and McCain.
3. Be diverse.  Go find others with different lenses than yours.  You don't have to agree with them to learn from them.
4. Find your destiny.  Not enough time to go through that process here, but those that know their destiny tend to see the importance of learning.
5. Don't be event minded.  Just because you go to the seminar at work doesn't translate to change.  And we all know that change should equate to learning.