In today’s world, you can learn anything. How to cook, sing, drive, throw eggs, build a stadium. Whatever you want. But have you ever felt that the more you learnt, the less you knew? It happens to me all the time. I feel that if I just read one more article, or watch one last video, I will finally have learned enough. But it’s never quite enough. I’m going to tell you why this is harmful to you, and how to stop your addiction and how to finally get over it once for all.
Thanks to the internet, you have access to any kind of information that you like. Thousands of years ago, you’d have to travel for months, maybe years, fight people and dragons (ok maybe not dragons) to read one page that you, instead, can access with just one click. The click that you will make right after having bought that Mini Foldable Quadcopter on AliExpress. Ancient Rome was a tough place to live in.
If only they were available in 65 a.C., we would have seen some amazing shows (Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash)
You read articles, loads of articles. You watch YouTube videos: “How to be more charismatic”, “How to be energetic”, “Watch this if you want to wake up early”. You listen to podcasts: “How to grow your business”, “The 3 steps to persuade”, “The 5 biggest mistakes that men do in a relationship”. All of that knowledge is mighty. It truly is. You are put in front of the minds of thousands of people, their stories, what they have done wrong and what they have learned from it. It’s the same as creating a Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino tasting magic potion with the neurons from Einstein, Seneca and Elon Musk, and drinking it to transform your mind into a Getac Intel i7–4810MQ.
It might have taken you a while to get used to learning. Maybe before you just sat on the couch watching your favourite eye-watering soap opera, and learning was something that for you was as impossible as cooking a blazing Mushroom And Goat Cheese Omelet With Spinach And Avocado would be for a cat. But you took the leap and you began to expand your limits, and now they are as wide as a green field in an orange glowing sunset.
But what got you here won’t get you there
Having knowledge is never enough. In fact, knowledge on its own is not worth that much. There’s a particular structure in our brain called reticular activating system (RAS). It’s located in the encephalic trunk. Its main function is linked to attention and stimulation of the other areas of the brain. The RAS only gets activated when you take action or something happens. This is just one important area of the brain, but many others work the same way. Your cerebellum grows thanks to trial and error. Every time you fail, it changes the links between neurons, so that the next repetition will be executed much more smoothly.
BRAAAIIINNNSSSSS (Photo by Jesse Orrico on Unsplash)
Learning without action then becomes an addiction in disguise. You feel that going through books, videos, podcasts makes you grow. In reality, all that is doing for you is giving you the impression that you are doing something. But you are not. You are simply giving your eyes some shiny precious stones to be amazed by. It becomes an excuse for you to not do anything. You’ll keep learning and learning but you don’t apply the things that you learn because you are too occupied learning some other things.
But how can you end this addiction and distinguish necessary learning from addiction?
1. Your knowledge prior to your action will never be enough for you to not make mistakes
If you want to start a business, realize that no matter how much information you’ll go through, it will never be enough. There’s a category of knowledge that can only be accessed through experience. When you were a kid, you had to fall to realize what were your limits when playing. You didn’t pick up Newton’s Law Of Physiques and analyzed how fast an apple could fall from your swing. You just fell and learned. It was way easier and effective. You then knew how to deal with the situation better. It’s the same when we are adults.
2. You don’t need that much knowledge to live
You know how to walk, talk, eat, sleep, take a shower, read. You’re pretty much set. Don’t be too harsh on yourself. Life is both long and short. While it’s true that it’s better for you to live each moment to the best, it’s all a journey. And the journey requires for you to be a student prior to being a master. You don’t need all the answers now, you’ll get them along the way.
Understand that the reason you never feel that you have enough knowledge is caused by you and you only. You never need enough knowledge. You just put too much pressure on yourself. You can live in a place where knowledge is a wonderful addition to your situation, not something you have to depend on.
3. Some of that knowledge is inside you, not in books
You have a subconscious mind that is incredible. You pretty much have billions of computers working all day processing information coming both from the world outside and your organs. That mind is also capable of creating some new information that maybe you can’t find in books. Your creativity is limited when you don’t give your brain time to process all that is going on. Trust it’s capabilities and stop controlling everything like a maniac.
No matter how well developed you are, there’s always more to be learned. But learning too much can preclude you the possibility of enjoying the very things that you have learned and applying them. How will you change your attitude towards learning?
Sure enough, I don’t want to read “Geology and Scenery”… Or maybe I do… (Photo by Karim Ghantous on Unsplash)