Growing up, one of the best pieces of advice I heard was that everything in life, no matter how small or big, can be learned from. If you go into a situation knowing this, no matter how bad things get, you will have come out the other side with more than you entered. Because you gained knowledge. Books are a safe and easy way to experience this. Though books often seem like just another form of entertainment, they are actually opportunities to dive into life lessons of all kinds. They allow us to learn something we might not have otherwise learned without going through it in real life. Books give us a place to go through it and come out on the other side with more than we went in and without the scars of real-life experiences. This isn’t to say that we should not learn from real-life experience or that we should use books to avoid problems. What it means is that the more we read, the more we learn in safety, and we can be more equipped to survive real life. This is why reading is so important.
The Learning Lifestyle
So how do we dive into a book with a learning mindset without forgoing one of the best things about books, the freedom to relax and unwind in a different world? The answer? Practice. As with anything in life, we need to practice. We need to remind ourselves that it is okay to learn something every time we experience life. I think that in life, we often see things as a means to an end. Unless there is a clear and immediate benefit to learning a lesson, we don’t. We tend to see learning as only important when it is relevant. But this is a problem. If we don’t learn something before we need it, then when the need arises, we are in way too deep already. So, learning needs to come before the problem. It must become part of how we think and approach everything we do.
Learning to Learn Freely
However, learning does not need to be exhausting. The idea of learning is often accompanied by the image of sitting in a hard chair, listening to someone else tell us something that we probably weren’t all that interested in, to begin with. But that is not learning. Learning is personal. Everyone has a specific way they learn. Some learn through sound, some through touch, some through music, and some through books. Still, others learn in many other ways. I used to learn best in a messy and sometimes noisy environment, while others I know learned best in a totally organized and quiet environment. For those who love books, you might be thinking, “Yeah, but I hated books in school, and I don’t like textbooks, so I’m not interested in learning from books.” Thankfully, you only need textbooks to learn factual information, like math or science. But I am not talking about that kind of learning. I am talking about life lessons. Learn to learn freely, outside the classroom, and not in a rote way. Learn to learn in a way that is natural to you. If it comes naturally, you will have a much better chance of enjoying yourself!
How to Learn from Any Book You Read
So, say you love to learn, you have been practicing this learning lifestyle, or you have just decided that you are starting to love it right now. How do you learn from any book? When you sit down to read, you don’t need to write things down or start highlighting things if you don’t want to. What you can do is simply pay attention. Pay attention to how people solve problems, which ways are good, which are bad. Pay attention to why characters do things? Can you bring yourself to understand them even if you disagree with them? Can you learn to care about a character even if they are the villain? Have you made similar mistakes as some of the characters? What pieces of advice from those you trust can be applied to problems the characters face? Can you see the bigger picture and how the characters could have addressed their problems better? What does your response to each character say about you and your worldview? Can you find patterns of examples like faith and self-sacrifice? All these questions can be great ways to learn about life, people, and yourself! But be on guard! Lies can rear their ugly heads in fiction and non-fiction alike! Don’t take something to heart until you know if it is good for you to do so. Get counsel from wise people and always seek truth, even if it isn’t as comfortable as you might want it to be. Authors aren’t perfect, so fact check and faith check. And keep learning!
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