I’ve known a potential learner for years – with a better grasp on the language she could speak with confidence and improve her life.
I asked this potential learner once why she doesn’t take the initiative to become a learner and the reply was ‘it doesn’t matter’. Yet clearly it did, so I couldn’t understand why the negative response.
Then it dawned on me that ‘it didn’t matter’ because she didn’t care about herself. Or she did, but not to the extent that she felt it was worth it to put in the effort of being an adult learner; which in the end means she didn’t feel improving her life was worth it, and had little value for herself.
Why do people not have self-love? Is it perhaps through social conditioning? That society says you’re a nobody until you have an imaginary status and jealous stares of your peers?
The perception that you aren’t valuable until other people think you are isn’t smart and here’s why: if your self-worth depends on others then they have the power to take it away. The longevity of happiness that comes from valuing yourself despite external factors has higher potential than the alternative of sourcing it from others. If a person could feel that they were totally worth it no matter what, what sense is there in thinking otherwise?
If you meet a potential learner who is sifting through the reasons to not be a student, maybe remind them a more important reason to become one is to exercise self-love.
It’s the absolute best thing you can practice and hope to inspire in others.