How to learn ... quickly and cheaply

Life is a long series of learning.  From the time we inhale our first breath to the time we exhale our last, we are presented with learning opportunities.  The proverb “A wise man learns from the mistakes of others; a fool from his own” has a lot of merit.  Either way, we are going to learn.  There is one way to learn from others that I have found to be really quick and cheap.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved words.  I am a dyed-in-the-wool bookworm.  This love of reading has developed into a love of learning.  In any given week I will read at least two books plus a business or leadership magazine.  Every week I learn a bunch of new things at relatively low cost.  Reading is a quick and cheap way to learn.Here are a few things you can learn by reading:

• Learn about something. Whatever you want to learn to do can be found in a book somewhere.  Anything from DIY projects, cross-cultural communication, the history of Russian literature or the rise of cartoons as political satire can be learnt from a book.  Yes, you can learn some of this from YouTube too, but the depth and breadth and the different viewpoints of a subject cannot be covered in a 2 minute video clip.
• Learn to relax.  Reading a novel is very relaxing.  Finding a quiet corner and putting your feet up, or sitting at your favorite Starbuck, opening a book, sipping a drink and … reading … is therapeutic and relaxing.  A flickering screen with fast movement and light does not relax the human body as much as quiet and solitude does.  Reading will help you learn how to relax – something this busy generation of ours certainly needs to learn to do.
• Learn to imagine and escape.  Meeting kings and scoundrels, going to exotic far off places, to the moon or to the South Pole in an afternoon is possible in a book.  Yes, TV and movies allow you to do this too, but only a book gives you the right to imagine what it all looks and sounds like.  The world of our imagination is a perfect escape – and sometimes that is exactly what we need.  To escape.  God gave us an imagination on purpose.  We need to learn to use it.  Books help us learn how.

Mark Twain once said, “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.”If you can read, you should.