Learning from Books is Valuable. But Your Most Powerful Learning (and Growth) will come through Deliberate Engagement with Daily Experiences.

Having to encapsulate my experience from a Toastmasters Pathway that I’d been working on over the past three years within a 12 minute speech wasn’t easy. I have three journals from the period that are chock-full of learning, reflections and revelations.

While preparing the speech, I felt prompted to pick up my copy of Carl Jung’s Psychology and Alchemy. I had no idea why beforehand, but I soon found out when I came across a certain passage:

“Rend the books, lest your hearts be rent asunder”

Rend is an archaic term meaning tear (into pieces).

Jung was quoting the old alchemists, who themselves were highly committed to study.

What could this passage mean, then?

Reflecting on my own experience from the past three years gave me an answer that resonated with the one that Jung provided.

Books are valuable in providing knowledge. 

But the understanding that can be obtained through books alone is limited.

Thus, books can be overrated as sources of learning.

The most powerful learning is obtained through personal experience; experience that penetrates the heart to create deeper understanding.

The old alchemists knew this, hence their warning about the consequences of failing to keep books in their proper place in the learning process.

I’ve read a lot of books over the past three years – and necessarily so. I’m still reading and learning, and can’t imagine a time in my life when I won’t be.

But the books I have written, as I’ve recorded my experiences in journals, represent a much more powerful form of learning that represents ongoing personal growth and transformation, irrespective of the challenges of the day.

Over the past three years:

I’ve learned more about the the limitations of rationality and reason – there’s so much that we don’t know;

I’ve learned more about the necessity of faith-based action – you don’t know what you’re truly capable of without putting your best foot forward;

And I’ve learned more about how great things can be brought to pass through small and simple means.

Read, don’t rend, your books.

But always bear in mind that your most powerful learning and growth will come through your deliberate engagement with your daily experiences.

If you would like any help in engaging more deliberately with your own daily experience to create a life of purpose, meaning and fulfilment then drop me a line: tom@3stewardships.com.