We’re in the Age of Information, which means we consume a lot of information on a daily basis.
Pictures of nice cars with a billionaire in front of it.
Pictures of hot girls.
Pictures of hot girls traveling.
Videos of pets.
Articles of “the secrets” of “highly successful people.”
These how-to-make-money videos by 21-year-old millionaires.
We’re taking in a lot — but how much of what we take in is beneficial to us in a non-entertaining way? Think about it. It’s close to none.
That’s exactly why we should read — not just regular everyday stuff on the internet — but books. But really, why read books? Aren’t books entertainment as well?
Because books help us reinterpret our current situation. This is important.
In an old essay of mine on the feedback loops in our lives, I illustrate how the negative feedback loops in our lives can be harmful if we’re not unconscious of them. What’s the beginning, or the cause, of a feedback loop? It’s an idea; a thought; an assumption; a perspective; an interpretation. The cause affects how we act, how we act affects the outcome, which affects the assumption. For instance, I want to learn Lithuanian, but I assume that “I suck at languages,” and “I’ll never be able to speak another language except my mother tongue.” When I attempt to learn it, and I make mistakes, I’ll search for a cause (or causes), which in this case are that “I suck at languages,” and “I’ll never be able to speak another language except my mother tongue.”
Both assumptions are unsolvable. There is no way out of them; it’s a dead end. And so I conclude: there’s no improvement or solution, so I shall give up.
Boom. Game over. I put down the thought of learning a new language for a while. But let’s say later I’ll come across a book like How to Really Learn a Language by Jeff Martin, which will change my assumptions of language-learning.
The book lets me know I’m not alone in facing those challenges and obstacles when learning a new language. Those mistakes are made by everyone trying to learn a new language. They’re a part of language-learning. Suddenly, I understand that when I face challenges while learning a language, it isn’t because I’m stupid or anything. That changes my mindset, and therefore I can now pick up the goal of learning a new language.
We Only Have So Much in Our Brains
No matter how smart we are in one field, we are a rookie in another. In The Knowledge Illusion
, authors Philip Fernbach and Steven Sloman illustrate how we actually know a lot less than we think. For instance, do you know how a zipper works? Chances are, like me, you don’t.
Of course, that’s just an example of many. In our everyday lives, we can operate a lot of things like computers, phones, and cars, without knowing their mechanisms. But what if I told you that the lack of logic and knowledge in us is ruining our lives?
Let me clarify. The quality of our lives is largely based on what we have and what’s going on in our lives, and what we have and what goes on in our lives are largely based on our decisions. For instance, Bruce worked hard as a student and had good grades, so he got to go to a decent university. After graduating from university, he got a job as a biomedical engineer, which is something that he has always been passionate about, and he’s not bad at it. When he’s at work, he works hard, when he’s not, he takes good care of himself: he exercises regularly, he pays attention to what he puts into his mouth, he reads to expand his horizon, he has good friends and an amazing wife. Most importantly, he’s happy.
But in a parallel universe, Bruce is miserable. He was a lazy kid: he didn’t pay attention in class and seldom returned his homework on time. In his free time, video games, cartoons, movies, and TV shows are all he gave a damn about. Now, consequently, because neither did he go to college nor does he have any skill that he can monetize, he’s stuck with a crappy dead-end dish-washing job. And because he spends all of his free time at home either watching movies or playing video games, he doesn’t have any friends. He is unhappy.
In the two stories, we can see how decision-making can influence the quality of one’s life.
How We Make Decisions
Don’t worry, I’m not going to talk about Behaviourism or how Freud’s psychosexual theory influence our decision-making, but let’s simplify all this: we make decisions based on what we think will give us the most pleasure. In other words, we do A instead of B because we think doing A will make us happier than doing B. We make decisions according to our “knowledge.”
But there are two issues of this “decision-making strategy.” For one thing, what’s good for us now doesn’t mean it’ll be good for us in the future. And for another, there’s a huge gap between reality and our imagination; what we think will happen is not always what happens.
Thinking influences doing. Guess what happens when thinking is flawed? Doing then will become flawed as well — and you know how it influences the quality of one’s life.
What we think influences what we do. And flawed thinking results in flawed doing. But here’s the cure: reading can help “unflaw” our thinking.
Pick Up a Book!
Not only do books change one’s interpretation of one’s current situation, but they can also change one’s interpretation of one’s past and future as well. Books are truly a treasure.
Are you struggling with some problems? Pick one problem, and pick a book about it, read it, and it will change your perspective.
It can open your mind to solve your problems.
By the way, we can read and learn someone’s lifework in a few hours? If it isn’t amazing to you, I don’t know what is!
