Are you Learning Actively or Building a Library?

Satya Nadella once said, “The one thing that I would say that defines me is I love to learn. I get excited about new things. I buy more books than I read or finish.”

Many people do it.

They buy more books they can ever read.

Some people buy books only to impress and decorate the home.

While Satya Nadella can justify the act of buying more books and not been able to read all of them, for us, the lesser mortals, things are a little different.

During my early days, I used to read whatever I used to get on my hand.

We did not have good access to the library nor had enough to buy books.

We also did not know about planned reading for active learning.

I read books primarily to entertain myself, not learn so much.

Of course, we learned many things in the process, including language skills and about society, human nature, etc.

As you get into life, you have lesser time to do random things and random reading because of a scarce resource called time.

Some people have an insatiable intellectual craving, and they can’t stop reading extensively and accumulating information and knowledge without having to apply the same.

Have you seen people who know Shakespeare to Haruki Murakami, Black Holes Theory to Marine Biology, AI to future of Digital Economy and what not?

When they get to learn new information there is a spark in their eyes.

They like to flaunt their inexhaustible sources of information and knowledge.

I know that because I was one of them.

Maybe it made sense in the past because access to information was limited.

So, if you knew a lot of information people would respect you.

Then came Google.

Today does it make sense to carry so much information overload with you if you are not using them every day.

Information is no more a novelty or differentiating advantage because it has almost all-pervasive and acquiring information is becoming dirt cheap.

What is the use of that information which we are not processed for gainful utilization in our life?

If the information has an entertainment value and it wanted them to have only for that reason, then it is different.

Like you know who in Bollywood is dating with whom and what is the latest Tweet put out by Kangana.

It is not only information that we keep acquiring but also new ideas, concepts, and frameworks and keep stacking them creating huge storage assuming that someday we will be able to call them out and use them in our life.

It becomes like a huge Library, where thousands of books are there but very few are read.

Learning and knowledge should have a definitive purpose.

It can be for entertainment value or creating useful applications out of the same.

We gather information, process some of them, and apply it in our lives, and get some benefits out of that, but the real transformation happens only when that knowledge is integrated with our life for gainful application.

This is why some not-so-smart people with limited knowledge even become successful than those who always carry an encyclopedia of knowledge.

Sometimes information overload leads us to a curse of knowledge where we developed cognitive bias that occurs when an individual while communicating with others unknowingly assumes that the others have the background to understand.

I remember once an IT Services business tycoon was asked whether he would like to get into politics, he replied that he never would because he is not good at communicating with the masses because of his complex thought process which essentially emanated from his huge knowledge.

This also comes from the fact as a culture we value so much in learning more and more, acquiring more knowledge rather than the application of the same on a day to to day basis.

I was a victim of Intellectual cravings, I learnt new ideas, concepts, frameworks, yet life did not change much.

I do not apply well those ideas, concepts, or framework well.

I was kind of a passive learner, learn and build a repository of knowledge rather than constantly applying them in my own life.

End of the day, we all know it does not matter how much you know, but how we grow and transform.

Then I decided, I have to apply what I know.

So next time if you are learning something new, be an active learner.

Any new learnings, knowledge, concepts, framework ask yourselves how can you integrate those learnings in your life.