Create your Destiny

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

Henry Ford

There is no better way to stay fit than to exercise, and “use it or lose it” is a reality that refers equally to body and mind. If you desire to think sharper, react quicker, and make better decisions you will have to keep exercising your mind to maintain it in good working order. Overall, this means spending less time engaged in passive activities and more time spent doing things that will stimulate the brain.

Some of the biggest time gobbling passive mind activities are pretty well known, such as spending too much time in front of the television, waiting for that guy in Nigeria with $8 million to bequeath to send you another email, or hoping your significant other will hang the roll of toilet paper the right way this time. Other more innocuous mind wasters include reflecting negatively upon your past, aimlessly surfing the net, and listening to political speeches in an election year. Actually that last one isn’t as bad as what usually follows, which is 3 or more talking heads explaining to us what the candidate who just spoke had to say. Have we really dumbed down that much as a society that we need to be told what the man in the suit just said; or are we simply too lazy to make the effort to interpret the obvious all by ourselves?

In keeping with Mr. Ford’s admonition, I’ve made a list of some of the tangible benefits of putting your mind to work on learning new things:

You may find something new to become passionate about.  Passion is a key to life, and discovering additional ways to uncork it can serve to juice up other, less inspired areas of your life.

Learning new things can make you more interesting.   Think the girls at the party still want to hear about your Dungeons and Dragons exploits; or that speaking in Klingon is somehow considered sexy? If you’re repertoire is old and stale, learning new things can help make your more social and enhance your appeal to others.

Learning keeps you alert.  You can’t run on autopilot when trying to master a new skill or venturing off into the unfamiliar. Breaking with routine to undertake new tasks instantly wakes up dormant areas of the brain that can be useful far beyond the task at hand.

Use it or lose it.  Your brain is a muscle like any other. It will atrophy without use.

So, if I’ve convinced you of the benefits of lifelong learning, you may be wondering what are some examples of the types of activities you should seek to incorporate. To get your mind jump started I have included a few rather simple ideas you may want to consider. The key is to pick out activities that you are not currently doing so that you can stimulate your mind in unfamiliar ways.   For example, you can:

1. Study a new language
2. Read a book
3. Take up a musical instrument
4. Start a blog
5. Play word games or puzzles
6. Play Sudoku
7. Choose to become more observant of the world around you
8. Write poetry
9. Take up dancing lessons
10. Travel to new places
12. Do things with your non-dominant hand
13. Try adopting the opposite point of view you normally take in arguments
14. Study martial arts
15. Paint, sculpt, or draw
16. Take a road trip
17. Go hiking in nature
18. Start a journal
19. Try a yoga class
20. Attend a live sporting event that you don’t know anything about.

There is really no end to a list like this. By simply making a commitment to exercise your mind and continuing to expose yourself to new ideas and concepts, you may be able to delay or even ward off the effects of the aging process on your brain. Your mental reaction time will improve, your focus will be sharper, you will become more interesting, life will begin to seem more vibrant, and you may even give up the urge to watch old Star Trek reruns or to hang the toilet paper roll backwards.

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