Nothing is more important than everything, sometimes.

There are many different ways for us to learn new things, perhaps nearly as many as there are new things for us to learn. Most of the time though, the methods we employ involve adding that new thing to our current collection of knowledge. We do this by wrapping what we already know around the edges of the new thing, so we can get a firm grip on it before exploring it to the point where we can fully make it our own.

We compare this new thing with all the the things we already know, with what we believe, what we think and what we fear. We apply our preconceived notions to it and based on the things we already know, we automatically begin to extrapolate things about this new thing that  "must" be true.

For things like grammar, vocabulary and mathematics, this is often perfectly acceptable. Things that we already have a foundation for, we can just stack the knew knowledge on top of the old. Often the new data follows a logical progression that can be calculated by what we already know.

There are times though, where what we already know is a hindrance, where it can impede and in fact completely prevent us from allowing something new to be learned. Sometimes we have to forget everything we know, in order to learn something new.

Have you ever seen one of those martial arts movies where a teacher is working with a student and they aren't getting anywhere? After awhile the the teacher says I can't teach you, you already know everything. He isn't saying that the student literally knows all that he has to teach. He is saying that he can't teach because what the student already knows keeps getting in the way.

The common analogy used has to do with a cup, where the cup is your brain. Imagine for a moment that I tell you to come to dinner and bring a cup so that I can fill it with the most delicious wine you have ever tasted. If you show up for dinner and you already have that cup filled with brandy, I can't fill your cup with wine, unless you pour out or drink the brandy. I have something wonderful for you, but you won't let me share it with you.

If you are learning a martial art, a new language, religion, philosophy or even just another person's point of view, anything that you don't already have a solid foundation for, all of your collected knowledge about things is useless.  And holding on to that knowledge will prevent you from learning about that thing as quickly and accurately as you would otherwise be able to.

There are times where your preconceived notions, your assumptions and your extrapolations are all going to be wrong, times where having a belief about something will taint the experience of actually learning it. Don't make comparisons between this thing and something else you already know. If it is a thing that you know nothing about, comparing it to something else that you do know about is bound to make you look stupid. Let the new thing be new. Experience it for the first time as a child explores their surroundings for the first time when they begin to crawl.

I am not suggesting that you literally erase from your mind all previous knowledge every time you want to learn something new. I am however saying that you need blank space for the new stuff to go and that you should clear that space ahead of time. Instead of wrapping what you know around the edges of the new knowledge, start with a blank area in your mind and let the new thing you are learning grow out until it is large enough to wrap around what you already know about everything else.

Make yourself part of the new thing rather than making the new thing part of yourself.

Excel your friends? Or let them excel you?

La Rochefoucauld, the French philosopher, said: “If you want enemies, excel your friends; but if you want friends, let your friends excel you.”

That's a rather interesting piece of advice. One would think there would be more companionship in everyone doing well. Yet there are examples of this philosophy all over the place in life. Whenever people start make something of their life other people decide they don't like the change. They get jealous that their friends are finally starting to have the good life and start trying to drag them back to their old habits and ways of thinking, like the proverbial crabs in a bucket.

People often say they want the best for the people that they care about, but what most of them really mean is that they want those people to have the best possible experience they can have as long as it isn't better than what their own life currently is.

But isn't this kind of backwards? I mean shouldn't we be happy for the people that we care about doing well, regardless of whether or not they are doing better than we are? If not, why do we send our children to school?

The whole point is to instill in our children knowledge that has already been accumulated, so that they can use everything that has been learned up until this point as a springboard for their lives, to propel them further than we were able to go. They can learn from the experiences of others. They do not need to go through the same trial and error that got us to where are today. 

For generations, martial arts students have trained under their teachers until their teachers could teach them no more. And then the students, the ones that stick with it,  become the masters, teaching a whole new generation of students.

Think about it, if I train from age 20 to age 60, I have 40 years of knowledge that I can pass on to others. But during my training I figure out new and better ways to do what has already been done. When I become the master, I am able to teach what I have learned to others in half that time. Those that I teach do the same and with each successive generation there is more knowledge and due to newer better techniques it takes less time to absorb it all, making for more time to learn even newer even better ways.

In martial arts it is the purpose of the master for his students to one day exceed him. One man standing on another man's shoulders can reach places he might otherwise never have been able to go. Shouldn't it be this way in every area of life where there is an instructor and a student? Martial arts, college, philosophy, an office job, family, relationships why should it be different for any of these things?

How does it make you feel when someone that you have taught something exceeds your training and is able to use it to go further in their life and to train that new thing to others? Do you think you should hide or squash your natural talents so as not to make others feel bad?

Specific Knowledge

Do you ever notice how in your dreams, no matter how weird things are, they seem to make perfect sense?

I was taking a nap earlier and woke up in mid-sentence from a dream I was having. I had started out  saying " As long as we keep attacking these one point buildings..." and then I woke up. I know that I was suggesting a strategy and that I was leading a team. But, whether or not we were playing a game or fighting for our lives, I could not honestly say.

The point is, I was directing the group with perfect clarity. Our clothing, specific location and individual attitudes all made sense. I knew the people that I was working with and that I could count on them.

But, if I had just woken up in the body of  this person that was doing the leading, I think it would have been a completely different story. Because right now, in the full light of consciousness, I have no idea what was going on. The circumstances, overall choice of dress and even the demeanor of my team seem to clash with one another.

My current point of view contains no real frame of reference for what was going on.

It reminds me of how people who have no idea what is going on often like to tell the experts in a field how wrong they are about the solution to a given problem. Most of the people living in my home do or have done technical support at some point in the past.

And we all have "horror" stories about customers that call up and tell us what is wrong and what we need to do to fix it. They are aware of the symptom that they are having, and due to either their own scant experience or the word of friends and family members they make up their own mind about what is wrong and latch on to whatever they think the fix is as being what we need to do. Ninety-five times out of a hundred, the customer is actually not correct about what the problem actually is, hence their solution is wrong also.

They do not understand computers or how they work and most of what they say and think about them is wrong. You can't just tell them that though or they get angry and ask to talk to someone who actually knows about computers, thus dragging the process on even longer without getting any results.

And the sad part is its the same in pretty much every field, not just computer tech support. People act the same way towards experts everywhere, telling them that they don't know what they are talking about when the truth is in fact the exact opposite.

It just does not make sense to me. When you have an illness you go to a doctor. The doctor does some tests, tells you what is wrong, and sends you home with a prescription to solve what ails you. Only an idiot tells the doctor that he is wrong and ignores his advice. When and if you argue with the doctor, you look like an idiot to him and everyone else that sees what is going on. You may know more about your body, but who knows more about medicine? If you knew what he knew you wouldn't need to go see him. You would write your own prescription fill it and go on about your business.

Well, an auto mechanic is a car doctor. A computer technician is a computer doctor. The account rep that you call when there is a problem with your cell phone is a cell phone doctor. Each one of them knows more about their specialty than you do. When you call them, you aren't telling them what the problem is. In almost every case, you do not have the knowledge or experience to make an informed decision about what the problem actually is.You are telling them what the symptoms are. They then use their much larger pool of knowledge about that particular thing to determine what the actual problem is and what needs to be done about it.

Realize that reason the other person is there, on the other end of the phone, is to diagnose, troubleshoot and fix whatever it is that you are calling in about. Also realize that you telling them what is wrong and what they need to do to fix it, just gets in the way and makes the problem take longer to resolve. The best thing you can do when calling for support is to admit, to yourself at the very least, that if you could fix the problem you wouldn't need to be calling for support. Then do your best to follow the directions of the technician so that things can be resolved as quickly and sanely as possible.

Do not take my word for it.

After over six months of sharing my life lessons with you, it occurs to me to mention something that should have been posted on day one or two. I urge you not to believe a single word that I say. Does that sound insane?  Perhaps some explanation is in order.

Most of the posts in this blog are an accumulation of literally thousands of hours of research and experimentation on how to live a happy life. It is the skills and ideas that have taken me from an angst ridden frustrated angry person to one who is happy, enjoys life overall and has a great sense of inner peace. I have looked at hundreds of problems from countless different angles and whittled down the massive numbers of potential solutions until I have found the one or ones that will work the best.

After seeing that my life works for me and that I am happy, many other people take what I say on faith, without testing it. This is foolish and to some degree saddens me. Still confused?

The way that I do the things that I do, work for me. There is no other person on earth that I can ever understand or know as well as I know myself. When I am attempting to solve a problem, generally, I am looking for solutions that work the best, for me. The only person who has all of my past life experiences is me. The only person with my specific mental condition is me. The only person with my memories, thoughts and emotions is me.

Changing a simple variable in an equation usually changes the outcome. Life, not being simple and black and white, throws curve balls into every situation. When it comes to solving real world problems often changing a single variable adds or removes other variables, making the equation an entirely different one, with different options and possibilities to consider.

Just because something is true for me, or works for me, or some other person that has decided to copy that aspect of my life, does not mean it will be true, or will work for you. When I say what I think is best, I am telling you what has worked for me and other people who have attempted it.

It is not in any way my intention to tell you that my solution will work for you. I am merely suggesting that you may want to look at an example that has proven effective in a similar situation. You may want to attempt to follow my way to the letter, or you may want to modify it to fit your specific circumstance.

But do not take what I say on faith. Do not just blindly accept it as true. Realize that it is my experience that causes me to say that one way is better than another. However, I am not perfect in any way. And I have not had every experience possible, not by a long shot. A different experience may show you a better way. Or my way may not fit your situation at all.

If there is an area where I am successful and you are not, there is probably something that I know about that particular thing that you do do not. Though, that does not necessarily mean that what I do in that area will work for you. Feel free to use my knowledge and experience to make finding your own solutions shorter and easier. But test what I say at every opportunity. Look for places where my way works and look for places where it does not.

Find out what works for you and what does not. Implement what does and discard what does not.

Good teachers still have a lot to learn

Many people see teachers as pillars of light shining through the darkness of the uneducated masses. They are sometimes looked at as the superheroes that draw our children out of that darkness and mold them into knowledgeable young adults.

Teachers are certainly those things, but they are not infallible and they do not know everything. The best teachers are themselves good students. They can and do learn what parts of their teaching methods are working for some students and not others.

Good teachers are adaptable and flexible, not fixed in their ways. They take constructive feedback from parents and students and use that information to find new more effective ways of teaching.
There multiple different ways of teaching a given thing. For example, some people learn better by listening, some learn better by watching and some, most in fact, learn better by doing. Learning a thing by doing a thing is called experiential learning. Now if a teacher uses experiential learning as their primary method, they will have more successes with that method than by any other. However, if some of the students of that teacher learn better by memorizing details that they hear, those students will do poorly unless the teacher is aware of that and makes that part of his or her lessons as well.

Also a good teacher is willing to accept the possibility of being wrong from time to time. After all, we are all human(supposedly) and do sometimes make mistakes. I remember multiple times while growing up, finding errors in my text books or on tests. Some teachers stubbornly defended whatever it was the printed word said, no matter how stupid or ridiculous it was. And it made them look just as stupid and ridiculous. Others admitted right off when an error was made and made every effort to make others aware of it so that the correct information would be available in the future.

What you may not realize is that we are all teachers and students. Every person you know or will ever know can be both teacher and student to you. There are things that you can learn from everyone alive, rich and poor, noble and peasant, elder and younger. Every man woman and child on this planet is a vast storehouse of knowledge and experiences. And you can fill your cup with that knowledge just as you can fill their cups with what you know.

But are you a good student? Are you a good teacher? Are you fixed and rigid in your ways? Is what tradition you is right all that you are willing to accept? Are you willing to admit when you are wrong? Are you open to new experiences and new ways of thinking? Are you able to take constructive feed back? Do you have a good message for others? Can you see how your knowledge and experiences could be valuable to others? If there is a better way than the one(s) you have been following do you want to know what it is and will you let others show it to you?

Unleash the power of your imagination

Sometimes knowledge is our worst enemy. That may be hard to believe at first but if you think about it you will realize that it is absolutely true. You know that certain things are possible and certain things are not. These things frame what your limitations are, literally defining what you can and can not do.

Have you ever seen one of those cartoons with Bugs Bunny or the Roadrunner character where they just walk out on to thin air or trot across the ceiling for a scene or two? But when Yosemite Sam or Wile E. Coyote try to do the same thing they fail due to the laws of gravity and physics. Someone comments on it and the reply is that the other guy could do it because he never studied law.

Now this is an extreme case that is kinda funny and would never work in real life but there are a lot of real events that work exactly that way. There are hard set limitations that you can not do anything about. Without oxygen you are going to die. That's a fact. Written in stone right? Or is it? It is.
Unless you figure out what it is that oxygen does for your body and find some other way of providing that thing. OR find some way of making it so that your body can continue to function without that thing.

See most limitations are not real.They are statements that are only true if you can not change the circumstances that they deal with that cause them to be true. They are simply challenges that have yet to be solved. A healthy mind or group of minds using the power of their imagination given enough time can solve any problem.

Think about this. The people that often come up with the best and greatest solutions to our problems are younger minds. People who have not been firmly indoctrinated in the beliefs that define what can and can not occur accomplish things that we know are not possible. Their solutions often work because they were not aware of the obstacles that others see in solving the problem.

The way most people try to solve problems is by starting with the limitations of circumstance and attempting to jam ideas into the box so to speak. The way creative problem solvers solve problems is the opposite. They just look at the goal and work backwards wondering how to get from the goal to where everyone else is.

It is not that their thinking is outside the box. It is that they are often not even aware of the existence of said box.

Inside the box thinking is like we could do this if we could get past this thing. But this thing is in our way. We can't do much about it so we're kinda screwed. It is signified by a lot of "if onlys" or "it's too bads"

Outside the box thinking is more like what if we did this or that or worked it from this angle. Using your imagination has a lot more "what ifs" and "why don't wes"

And as always it comes down to choice. You always get to choose whether to use the power of your imagination to drive yourself on to success. Or you can choose to let obstacles get in your way.

There is no problem that you cannot solve with the power of your mind. So why don't you? Let go of what you know to be true and free your imagination. Test things that would work if known limitations did not exist and I guarantee you will be surprised with the results.

What do you know?

What I have for you today isn't so much a lesson as it is food for thought.

Most people think that the universe is divided into two categories when it comes to knowledge. First there are the things that we are aware of, which we call the things that we know. And then there are the things that we realize the existence of but about which we have little or no information about, which we call the things that we do not know. 

There is a third much larger category though. It contains all of the things that we do not know that we do not know. In truth, the entirety of the first two categories would fit inside but a single drop of what is the ocean of things that we do not know that we do not know.

It is very common to look around at your surroundings and after once becoming comfortable with them to believe that you know what there is to know about them. But this simply is not true. The more we learn and study our natural environment the more things we learn about. Our horizons expand as we include new information into our knowledge base and new things become possible for us.


The truth is these "new" things were always possible, we just did not know it. Our understanding of all the facts at hand is what limits what we can and can not do. Often when we learn something new, old theories and beliefs automatically become invalidated. Things that we "knew" beyond a shadow of a doubt were true turn out to be false.

It used to be a "fact" that the world was flat. We know now that the world is round. It used to be a fact that if you wanted a message to travel thousands of miles it would take weeks. We can now have a message travel the globe in mere seconds. It used to be a fact that the sun the moon and the stars all rotated around the earth. We know now that the earth is but a small part of a solar system that travels through a much larger galaxy.

Man has been on this planet and recording history for but a few thousand years. During that time our knowledge base has multiplied itself many times over. This happened very slowly at first. But as ways of sharing knowledge have become more and more rapid the increase has been at near geometric rates.

Yet, scientists believe that more than 99 percent of everything that we believe to be true is false. We simply have not learned enough about the universe to know what really is and what is not.

How arrogant the average person is in his belief that what he knows is a large fragment of what there is to know. If you were to take any man from any era and show him the wonders of life five hundred years in his future you would likely blow his mind, with all of the "impossible" things that are just part of everyday living.

So, I challenge you. Set some time a side, a few minutes, maybe half an hour. Think about all the things you know. Think about all the things you don't know. Then do your very best to imagine looking into that ocean of things that you do not know you do not know. Think of all the things that might be if the first two categories of knowledge were expanded, if you knew more and were more aware of the things you know you do not know. In your mind's eye see if you can shift some of the things from that third category into the other two.

Experience

Have you ever tried to avoid reading a big heavy book for a book report by getting someone else to summarize the book for you. Perhaps you used Cliffs Notes. Then you wrote up your report based on someone else's summary.

If you have, you probably did alright but not amazing with your report. But what if, after you handed in your report, the teacher called on you to answer some specific question and to back up your answer with how you think a certain character in the book would have felt in the circumstance. You would probably be floundering at that point, not sure what to say. After all if you had actually read the book you should be qualified to answer the question.

But, since you did not, you would not have the knowledge that would have been gained by the experience of actually reading it. You only have the limited knowledge based on the summary that you used. Due to the nature of summarizing, a great deal of the detailed specifics of what went on in the book would be completely unknown to you.

The same is true in nearly every area of life. People are constantly looking for the quick way or the shortcut to a thing. And the truth of the matter is, after you have gained the knowledge and experience of a thing it is easy to condense most of that information down to a few easy sentences or paragraphs.To other people who are just as learned in the topic you are discussing as you are, those few words will call up the entire experience and they can then comment on their thoughts and feelings on the subject.

People without that collection of knowledge and experience will only get the base meaning behind your words and will have no framework for which to apply them to. Often times your summary will make no sense to them at all for this reason.

Think for a moment of a mathematician. If you were to walk up to him and ask him to start explaining to you a certain differential equation, his answer would likely make no sense at all to you if you were not also a mathematician. The reason for this is because it is an advanced math. If you do not already know calculus, and a number of other things you would not have the knowledge to be able to do anything with his answer.

What about man's search for enlightenment? Lots of movies and books show the novice going up to a wise man or master of some sort and asking for the secrets to life and happiness. Invariably, the answer is always something that the unlearned person can not understand.

In a great many areas of life a person learns things slowly over time and at each step adds a bit more to their knowledge base. Eventually they are able to come to understandings and conclusions that simply were not possible from the start. Their paradigm changes over time to include more and more complex notions based on things learned much earlier. The person who completes this process is not the same person who started it.

There is no quick easy way. If you want to be successful at a thing you need to put in the time required to gain the knowledge and experience. You must surround yourself with the thing you want to know and look at it from new and different angles as you learn more and more about it.

Then, one day, people will come to you and ask you to summarize the subject that you are an expert at. And on that day, you can smile cryptically and give them an answer that is perfectly true but makes no sense to them.

Are you on the same level?

Have you ever found yourself getting deeply into a discussion about something that you are very passionate about and realizing about half way in that everyone around you is just kind of staring blankly at you because they have no idea what it is that you are talking about?

This kind of thing used to happen to me all the time. And what was worse, I had no idea why they were lost. It seemed to me that the things that I was talking about were often not that complicated. I mean sure they were based on something that was based on something that was based on something. But if you knew and were familiar with those three somethings, then the thing that I was talking about seemed self evident. Okay, so maybe it was kind of complicated.

Even though I knew it subconsciously, it took me a long time to realize that we all have different experiences in life that make us who we are. Every single thing that happens to us helps us to form a frame of reference for what goes on in our life. Every single person's frame of reference is different. And if your frame of reference does not include similar experiences to the person that you are talking to, when you get into certain topics you are sure to lose them. Even now, I need to be reminded of this from time to time.

There are two basic ways to prevent this. The first is to ask questions to determine the other person's overall general knowledge of the subject that you want to discuss. That way you can tailor what you say and how you say it to the specific level of knowledge that the person you are speaking to happens to have. Depending on the person this could be quite a long onerous process.If the other person has partial knowledge of what it is that you want to discuss, this is usually the better way.

The other way is to assume that the person is a completely blank slate and has absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about the topic of which you wish to speak. In this case, you can treat everyone the same. You start at the very beginning and step by step get to the more complicated stuff, once the listener has indicated that they understand and agree with the first part(s). At any point the listener can inform you that they understand the part you are explaining and you can move on to the next point. OR at any point they can ask questions to increase their level of clarity. I prefer this method because I enjoy treating everyone as if they were equals. It usually takes a little longer but I do not have to memorize four or five different ways to explain a thing. If you properly explain all of the steps leading up to a thing, when you finally get to your point, that point will seem natural and self evident.

Doing either of these things may seem like a hassle but if you want people to be into the kinds of things that you are passionate about then you are going to need to be able to talk to them about those things without them constantly looking at you like you just grew another head. That way you can share the things you love with the people you love and you can grow and enjoy life together. And isn't that really what we all want?