Over the past couple of weeks I've been clearing brambles from the back of our garden. These long, thorny, and tangled weeds choke the plants we want to grow and stop the garden achieving it's full beauty. In order to make room for new, stronger and better growth, the weeds have to be uprooted.
As I was carrying out this task, I couldn't help drawing an analogy to intelligence.
While the potential of the brain is debatably limitless, there is one major constriction: time.
Our time is a finite resource, yet many of us waste it. Some people spend hours watching television that doesn't improve their lives in anyway. Or they play games, with opponents that are not challenging enough. Or cook the same meals, day after day; never experimenting.
Many people go to work everyday, completing a job that has become simple. When the challenge of the work disappears, learning stops. When learning stops, there is no growth.
A forgettable day is a wasted day. It doesn't matter if you took time off and enjoyed yourself lazing in the sun. Unless you deserved that break, and needed it to recover you've achieved nothing. You will forget what you did, and it will not serve you at all in the future. If you're going to take a day off, make it a memorable vacation.
I believe in investing in the future; in making every moment count. Some times that means creating, sometimes that means learning, and sometimes that means experiencing new things.
Many of our activities stop that investment. They act like weeds that constrain our growth. Whenever we choose to do one activity we are sacrificing the chance to do something else.
If we are to sow the seeds of intelligence we have to make room. We have to weed out those activities that are standing in the way of new growth. We even have to get rid of the old activities that once served a purpose, but now constrain us like any other weed. We need to make time.
Gardening Our Brains
Our time is a limited resource, so we need to spend it wisely. Yet we usually ignore the activities that are depleting us.
It's time to clear out those brambles and make room for activities that will make us grow.
Most of our activities are habits: the forums we visit, the TV programs we watch, the radio we listen to, the papers and books we read, and the games we play. While these activities may have started out as worthwhile pursuits, we have likely learnt all we can from them and it is time to move on. Clear these brambles out and make room for new activities that will further your growth.
Addiction
If you try to give something up and you feel an emotional reaction to doing so, you're likely addicted. Often that emotional reaction is the thorns from the brambles digging in and not letting you go. It's not a real attachment. Listen to yourself and introspect. Why don't you want to give it up? Is there a logical reason? A TV drama may, for example, provide you with inspiration or a new way of looking at the world, or you may have simply become involved with fake characters. Letting go of our habits can be tough, but holding on to them will only make you weaker.
Think of at least one thing now, and vow to replace it with a better activity.
Cultivating Our Thoughts
You can take this further by weeding your very thoughts. To give you an example of what I mean, thoughts which are like weeds include:
If you focus on improving your external reality, your inner thoughts will grow as well - so focus on that first. In future articles I shall cover the above items in more detail.
In the meantime, weed out some of those depleting activities.
And let your intelligence flourish!