"Always desire to learn something useful"

Sophocles urges a posture more than a program: let desire itself become the engine of growth, and direct that desire toward what helps life go better. Learning, then, is not a chore but an appetite, and usefulness supplies the compass. Curiosity is gathered and aimed, so that knowledge can touch the ground of action. The horizon is practical wisdom, knowing what to do, when to do it, and why, rather than the mere accumulation of facts.

Usefulness should be read broadly. It includes skills that feed, heal, build, and explain, but also habits of mind that clarify judgment, cultivate empathy, and steady the soul under pressure. A useful lesson may be how to listen without defensiveness, how to negotiate fairly, how to manage one’s attention, or how to see a problem from the vantage point of someone who bears its costs. Such learning reduces confusion and suffering, increases capability and dignity, and equips a person to contribute more than they consume.

The modern world confronts us with more information than any one mind can hold. Desire guided by utility becomes a filter: choose signal over noise, practice over posturing. Ask better questions, run small experiments, turn insight into repeatable habits, and let feedback refine understanding. A day is well spent if it yields one new tool you can use tomorrow.

There is a danger in narrowing usefulness to immediate profit. Some knowledge flowers later; wonder nourishes invention; beauty strengthens resolve. Yet even the seemingly impractical can serve life when it deepens perception or steadies character. The key is orientation: learning that ultimately serves people and purposes beyond the self.

“Always” makes the counsel continuous. Keep desire alive through humility; be willing to unlearn, to begin again, to be taught by success and failure alike. Measure progress by the problems you can now solve, the harms you avoid, and the goods you enable, within your work, your relationships, and the community you help to sustain.