One thing I have been proud of keeping since school life is reading books. At the very first beginning, I didn’t have much plan on why I read and how I should read. I just read, mostly, fiction, literature, etc. Then I became interested in history, psychology and philosophy, and I even read some books on socialogy, politics and life of the population of the basic level, etc.
Once I heard some famous people say we should read to build our own knowledge architecture so that we can have our own independent thinking on something or some people, instead of following others and echo what others say. That hit me a lot as I was thinking I have read a lot of books but I didn’t have my own knowledge system so that I can apply to real life and real issues, or even make some comments on historic events or theories. It bothered me a lot though it didn’t stop me continuing reading. And then, after a lot lot more reading, I feel like I can make comments on something out of my independent thinking, which means I can organize what I have read and what I have experienced to make judgements myself. That is a big one for me and it comes totally unexpectedly.
I think this proves how things work to most of us most of the time. We were taught some very smart lessons at our early life, by our parents, teachers and some older people around, but we didn’t understand it quite well before we finally prove it with our own experience. And only when we prove it ourselves can we say we have got the lessons and realize that we do achieve something we expected very urgently a long time ago and that means we have made much progress since then.
We all want something better and sometimes it takes longer to finally get it than we expect. I guess before that what we can do is carry on, be more patient and never give up easily.