Improving myself.

That’s really the point of this whole little journey I’ve thrown myself into. What I’m learning on this trip is that you often have to admit you weren’t doing the right thing first before you can start doing the right thing after. Humility is becoming a trait I’m much more familiar with these days.

I’ve always loved knowledge. My head is full of random tidbits and facts to the annoyance of my coworkers and the joy of my trivia team members. History has always been where my interest lay: by the time I was 11 I was going through any book I could find on World War II. By high school, it was the Cold War. No real surprise I chose history as my major then.

Things somehow changed after college. Somehow, some way, I got the impression that I didn’t need to learn anymore. Sure there was on the job training and articles to be read on my industry but as far as general knowledge and books were concerned I figured I could get through life based on my instincts alone.

As mentioned in my first post, stupidity seems to have been a theme for me.

My mindset changed when a friend loaned me a book called Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, a book I will go into more detail on in a later post. Around the same time I read this post by Ryan Holiday on his “trick” to reading. It was like the floodgates had opened up.

I began devouring books again – since my friend lent me that book in August I’ve gone through
twenty two books and I’ve barely scratched the surface of my new reading list. The selection includes everything from historical biographies, self-help books, histories of chemistry and mathematics and even a textbook. I’ve learned more in the past few months on how to effectively live my life than I ever was able to learn in school.

There is a freedom in crafting your own education that I’ve never experienced before. Major characters of history, from Alexander the Great and the Ancient Greeks, to James Madison and the Founding Fathers have written on the importance of becoming your own man through a strict regimen on self-education. It was a concept I had read over and over in class, assuming I was doing just that. But I’m realizing I’m only now starting to understand what they were getting at.

Unlike Mr. Holiday, I do have a small trick i use to get through more books: Audible. If I’m commuting or traveling or doing dishes or working out or on a bike ride or even just trying to shut my brain off after a crazy day I’m listening to something. I can certainly read faster than I can listen, but you can’t always be in a place to sit and read. Audible fixes that problem and it’s the best investment I’ve yet made.

Every so often I’m going to post my thoughts on the books I’m reading. Honestly, it’s a way to ensure that even if I have a boring day I won’t have an excuse to not write something on here

Here’s a list of some of the books I’m currently reading or have read in the past few months and will be posting about later:

Never Eat Alone, Keith Ferrazzi
48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene
The Art of Worldly Wisdom, Baltasar Gracian
Guns, Germs and Steel Jared Diamond
Civilization, Niall Ferguson
The entire Theodore Roosevelt trilogy by Edmund Morris
Churchill by Roy Jenkins
The Clockwork Universe, by Edward Dolnick
Euclid’s Window by Robert Blumenfeld
The Disappearing Spoon, Sean Runnette
And so many others…

There is a point to this post and it’s this: this blog has gotten a lot more support and a lot more interest than I had expected it to. So I figure I should put that to good use. My goal is to have just one person read this post and decide to pick up one of these books and start a journey of their own.

That seems to be the perfect thought to leave the country on.