Level Up
I had the chance of spending quite some time discussing this point last week with some of you who are attending one of the online talk series currently on-going. And I think it’s a good place to begin our effort to level up. I first came across it last year in a nifty quotation from Mark Twain. And it quite honestly has haunted me since.
“The person who won’t read has no advantage over the one who can’t read.”
It has haunted me because slightly tweaked, it presents a challenge that I personally have not risen to meet: “The man who doesn’t put knowledge he’s acquired into practice, has no advantage over the one who has never had that knowledge in the first place.” You are both worthless in that regard.
That’s you. That’s me. Worthless. Because our knowledge remains theoretical.
If you read and follow this series every single day yet put nothing into practice, then you have no advantage over the person who’s never come across it. Same applies if you read all these self-help books, attend talks and meditations wherever, meet up with your mentor and confessor every week, listen to podcasts or follow that guy on YouTube/Twitter/IG… All worthless if it remains theory.
Thomas Edison would phrase it slightly differently: “The value of an idea lies in the using of it.” He would never have been hailed as the inventor of the light bulb if he hadn’t put his idea of what a light bulb is and how it could work into practice, if he hadn’t actually tried making the light bulb. You will never be hailed as a man if you never put the idea of being manly into action.
I finish with a quotation I was recently reminded of from Christian N. Bovee: “What a man knows should find its expression in what he does. The value of superior knowledge is chiefly in that it leads to a performing manhood.”
Over to you.
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