On reading and Mind Expansion

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Today's daily dose: On Reading and Mind Expansion
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Are you willing to question your thinking?

Some people are and some people are quite happy walking down a straight road between birth and death neither looking left nor right. This is my life, and this is what I've got to do. No - don't distract me, I'm not interested. Or the worst ones -

• What are you doing that for? 
• What do you get from going to all these events? 
• What do you get from reading all those books?
• Books are expensive, I can't afford to keep buying them.

It never ceases to amaze me how much there is to read, learn, absorb and apply to my life. I am on a constant growth curve and shake my head when I hear people talking about the same things day after day after day. They may read, but it's gossip mags and the same fictional writers. And consequently - their conversations are usually similar too...did you see so and so on the television last night. Have you heard - blah, blah is pregnant - AGAIN. Shock horror - really? Well isn't that - not very interesting.

Call me a snob if you like, but I'm more interested in living my life to the best of my ability than watching other people live theirs through glossy magazines. That's the main reason why I don't watch reality shows such as Big Brother or soap operas.

It amused me one day - sitting in a waiting room - I started flicking through a gossip mag. Same people being talked about. Same issues - who's pregnant, who's sleeping with who. It also turned out to be quite funny when I read the date, saw it was from several years ago and virtually every "story" turned out to be just that. A story made up by the writers to sell the magazine.

Hint, if you are providing reading material for your clients - please try and make sure they are up to date. But please add some that challenge your brain just a little. Not everyone is into cars and female celebrities.

As part of my day job I get to read all sorts of information relating to marketing, web development, human resources, training, computing, libraries, information management, records management and conservation of material - especially digital resources. As a consequence I came across this gem and thought you I would share it with you.

"No matter how smart you get, there's always a page in there you haven't read, and on each page of consequence, there is a detail or source of inspiration that you've missed." and a bit further into the article - on reading software manuals and why he does it - "Don't go to documentation looking for answers. Go looking for knowledge, and the answers will come along for the ride."
Tom Yager
RTFM P10-11 Information Age October/November 2008

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Today's blog post: Mind Expansion
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You cannot be half open minded, any more than you can be half pregnant. You either are or you're fooling yourself.

Take any kind of event or training course or program that you are planning on taking or a new area you want to study in. Can you imagine how little benefit you would get from going to that event / training course if you went in with arms folded tightly across your chest with an attitude that says - I don't want to be here, I don't want to learn anything new, in fact you can't teach me anything new. My personal belief system says what you are saying is completely wrong and I just cannot believe what you are telling me. Read more at - http://www.motivateme.info/through-the-barrier/2008/11/1/mind-expansion.html

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