Everyone knows you must exercise regularly to maintain good health. Indeed, staying physically fit is a big part of our culture. We consider (and rightly so) that healthy people are attractive people. Since most of us want to be attractive, there is no shortage of exercise clubs, training videos, magazines, and books offering to help us stay physically fit.
Unfortunately, however, our culture does not place the same emphasis on mental fitness. Although we worship men and women with strong, healthy-looking bodies, we don't have the same degree of respect or attraction for smart, educated, mentally healthy people. This is a shame, because there are immense rewards for people who have developed the ability to think well.
If your mind is well-trained and flexible, you will be able to understand a great deal of what happens around you. And if you are also well educated — that is, if you understand basic science, mathematics, music, art, literature, history, and so on — you will find it much easier to make good decisions throughout your life. Over the long run, this leads to a sense of control over your destiny and a much better life than otherwise.
People who are poorly educated or who don't think well — that is, people who are not mentally fit — see things differently. Their world is controlled by mysterious, often malevolent forces. Such people live within a system they will never master, forced to follow rules they will never understand. Although it may not be obvious, most people spend their lives being manipulated by others. They are told what to do, what to think, how to spend their money, and what they should and should not aspire to in life.
In my opinion, if you want to live well, you must be able to use your mind well. For this reason, I want you to be able to concentrate, to solve problems, to understand complex ideas, and to think clearly and quickly. Such skills will make it easier for you to make informed decisions, understand current events, choose good friends, manage your money well, make wise long-term decisions, and appreciate music, art and literature,
The key to developing such skills is to enjoy learning, and to have the ability and motivation to teach yourself.
We all know that the best way to keep yourself physically fit is to exercise every day. Some days you do more; some days you do less. The important thing is to make physical fitness part of your daily routine.
What many people do not appreciate is that the same principle holds for mental fitness. If you want to be able to think well and to learn well, you must exercise your mind daily.
As with physical fitness, there are any number of activities you can do to keep in shape. However, over the long run, the very best way to exercise your mind is to form the habit of reading. Here is why.
Think of the difference between watching television and reading a book. Watching television is, essentially, a passive experience. You sit, you look, and you listen. Such concentration as you have is driven by outside stimulation. In fact, when you are caught up in a TV show (or even a commercial, for that matter), it is a lot more like being hypnotized than being aware and present with your thoughts.
Reading a book, on the other hand, requires active concentration. As you read, you must put in a great deal of effort to look at the words, figure out what they mean, and build up images, thoughts and opinions within your mind. Moreover, if you are reading and you stop concentrating, even for a second, everything stops. Nothing happens until you start concentrating again.
For this reason, reading regularly forces you to increase your powers of concentration, a skill whose value would be difficult to over praise. Reading
Thoughts by Harley Hahn.
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