80. BEING THE BEST YOU CAN BE

Most people do not grow in the mental department much beyond the 13-year-old stage. What they learn by this age is sufficient to get them by, so that's where they remain. Also, in our modern age, people have changed from being something, to having things. Instead of inventing, they buy inventions. Instead of playing the sport, they watch pay-per-view. Instead of being healthy, they get a pill. The result is a neutral gear where a person becomes a mere repository of goods and services.
 
But life is funny that way. There is no such thing as status quo or neutral. Either we advance or we fall behind. This applies to business, relationships, society, employment, and physical and mental health. Use it (and grow it), or lose it. It's not the easy road, but what worthwhile in life is?
 
The body and mind are designed for growth. We can always learn a new physical skill. Strength, coordination, and speed can all be increased. It takes work, but it can be done. The body thrives on signals telling it that it is alive, needed, and must improve because of the demands placed upon it. Challenging the body (within reason) is a key to keeping youth and health.
 
Even with our most concerted efforts we use only a small fraction of a brain designed with incredible capacity. But if we don't use it, it gets all stupid, mushy and bigoted ("I know this or that is so because that's what my parents told me when I was 13").
 
Here is some brain weightlifting to start growing impressive brain muscles:
 
• Learn a new word every day. Words are the framework from which thought can be expressed. Keep to the tiny vocabulary erector set you had at 13 and that will be the level of your intellect and your ability to make something of life.
 
• With age, life experience permits us to learn much more efficiently than when in school as a child. So get high school chemistry, English, biology, government, history, or algebra books and study them. The ability to understand the material will have greatly improved and you'll be surprised at the fun of really mastering a subject and seeing how it all makes sense and fits together.
 
• Read lots of non-fiction. Listen to educational tapes. Watch educational television. Join organizations that are doing something worthwhile. Associate with smart people and let it rub off.
 
• Self-teach something like building a home, fixing the plumbing, preparing your own taxes, learning a sport, cooking nutritionally, sewing, and painting. Be slow to hire someone to do something you could learn to do. To learn something new and accomplish a thing you have not done before is one of life's great treasures. Why pay someone to take it from you? Look at it this way, as the comedian Jim Carrey quipped, "They are a carbon-based life form just like you." If they can do it, so can you.
 
• Find sites on the Internet to engage others in intelligent discussion on topics that interest you. But don't assume that just because you can talk uninterrupted in a chat room that you should be saying anything. Put something intelligent, informed, and rational under your cap first. Until then, make ears and eyes the primary organ of communication.
 
• Express your view in writing to politicians or anyone else who is rubbing your smarts the wrong way. Win others with the force of your knowledge and reason. Above all, be ready to admit error. The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. Welcome and embrace the discovery of your error. No one is perfect and it is only by discovering imperfections that we can improve.
 
• Don't overlook the physical needs of the brain. It is an oxygen and good nutrition glutton. So get plenty of fresh air as well as exercise to help expand the vessels that deliver this essential brain fuel. Sleep and nap for rejuvenation. Eat plenty of high quality protein and use supplements such as essential fatty acids which can significantly enhance cognitive and motor subscales of mental development. (See Health and Food Sections, as well as my book, Lipid Nutrition.)
 
Begin today to grow a better you and never stop. Don't let age, lack of education or any other excuse stand in the way. Be the best you can be, starting now.

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