That is, learning becomes easy, once people let go of the idea that learning is easy.

Beyond this, it’s also helpful to let go of the idea that learning is convenient.

Learning is a humbling process. A big part of our learning requires us to change the ideas we already have.

In some cases, it’s amazing as we start to see that something we thought to have understood completely suddenly opens up to a world of new learning. It has something of shifting our understanding from seeing something as an integer number to seeing it with fractional numbers. It’s a shift from something whole to an infinite view of that whole.

In other cases, it can feel more painful if the idea we have to give up is one that has been dear to us. Children who believed in Santa Claus and had to learn that he most usually is replaced by family members playing his role may remember how it feels. And it luckily isn’t always as difficult as that. Nevertheless acknowledging misunderstandings or taking in the fact that science has evolved and reshapes given ideas requires letting go of a held belief. It’s only then, that the new idea can be integrated.

Taking it from there, the saying “I know that I know nothing” becomes a way to remember that what we know now might have changed since then. The assumption that we know prevents us from learning something new.