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Beef up your mental toolkit
We are all born with certain reasoning tools which are popularly referred to as "common sense". We know that it's a good idea to avoid pain, for example.
These tools are useful to a certain extent in the modern world, but they have their limitations. That's why it's worthwhile spending time beefing up your mental toolkit. It helps you deal with the world better than mere common sense ever could.
Even better, in competitive pursuits, having more tools available to you will give you an edge over those who just rely on their inbuilt reasoning abilities. It's like having an internet-connected PC while those around you are still relying on their pocket calculators.
So which tools are worth putting into your mental toolkit? The answer is to collect concepts - ways of looking at the world and processing information.
An example of a very useful concept that's learned rather than inbuilt is percentages. When we're taught to divide things into hundredths in school, we're provided with a mental tool that serves us throughout life. Think of how difficult it would be to make sense of things like interest rates, commissions, grades and so on if you didn't understand percentages. They're such a useful tool, that the time and struggle spent learning them in our childhood pays off a hundred-fold.
The problem is many people give up on developing their mental toolkits after leaving school. Like a carpenter with only a hammer in his toolbox, every problem starts to look like a nail.
Many concepts are difficult and a bit boring to learn, but like percentages, they're well-worth the effort. Imagine how much better our carpenter could do his job with a screwdriver, electric drill, saw and sander added to his box.
You should aim to be an obsessive collector of new concepts. And not just from one field. Read about all sorts of topics and try to learn the basic ideas that underlie them. Beef up your mental toolkit with as many different tools as you can.
Understanding how artists use color, for example, can help you dress better, make better designs and choose better gifts. Having a grasp of the basics of economics can increase your wealth.
Often, when you undertake this task, you begin to notice just how crude the "common-sense" most people rely on is. Sure, it can help you get by, but like a man who's been banging in screws with a hammer and then learns about screwdrivers, you realize just how limiting your previous methods have been.
Human understanding is filled with interesting and important concepts. You could dedicate a lifetime simply to learning the science ones alone. Don't let that overwhelm you though. Just because you'll never learn everything, doesn't mean you should stick to learning nothing.
Fill your head with ideas, and your ability to deal with the world will increase vastly.
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