I have a new cell phone. I didn’t want a new cell phone; I was perfectly happy with my 2020 cell phone, but it wasn’t happy with me. Its connector charging port was ailing. Failing, actually, the service tech told me. And besides, it was an old phone, what did I expect?

Old? This to a woman who is more than content, read “thrilled,” to wear outdated fashions just because she likes them. And would willingly keep computers way past their supposed “shelf life.” Sigh.

OK, fine, so new cell it is. No more buttons, just a lot of swiping – up, down, left, right. How am I supposed to keep it all straight? The service tech was remarkably patient. I was not. “I can’t do this!” I swore to myself, silently, of course. But then it dawned on me. “Can’t” or “Don’t want to”?

Train Your Brain

Ah, there it is. The truth at last. Of course I can. I can learn. It’s not brain surgery or rocket science. Millions, probably billions of people, even those over the age of 12, have learned this. They weren’t geniuses, either, just regular folk. So, given a little time and patience, I can learn this. But I don’t want to.

I want my “old” cell phone, which was familiar to me, that I had long mastered. I want the comfort of not having to learn something new. My inner 3-year-old is stomping her virtual feet and having a mini-meltdown. Sad, really. Because I know all too well that when we stop learning, we begin to decline. As Albert Einstein succinctly put it: “The day you stop learning is the day you start dying.”

Learning is to the brain what weight training is to our muscles. The brain, like a muscle, weakens when we don’t use it, and learning new things is a great way to “weight train” our brains. Learning keeps our cognitive abilities honed and developing; it keeps us engaged in life and living.

So much as I fuss against having to learn yet one more technical what’s-it, I eventually surrender to the need to do so, and finally, feel grateful for the learning imposed on my brain.

After all, what’s a brain for, if not to think, get challenged to think about something new, and then think some more?