This article is an excerpt from a book written by me about twenty years ago called "Pragmatic Spirituality for a Progressive and Humane Society." A book (pages 250 in English) to help third world countries to put together a politico-cultural manifesto for progressive evolution.
UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE OF WORK AND STUDY HABITS
Advanced modern education in many ways is about learning the many frameworks of knowledge, how they are interrelated with each other, the degree to which we are to be proficient in our ability to effectively apply that knowledge, and cultivating our abilities to be Mindful so that we may correctly review, renew, and revitalize those frameworks and create and evolve greater worlds for mankind. Those who lack the ability to acquire advanced functional education will be far less likely to have the here-and-now powers to affect their collective destinies. And to acquire advanced functional education, a person must have good work and study habits.
It typically takes a decade or more of diligent study and practice in subject matters such as languages, math, sciences, the arts, and the humanities, to become an expert. Studying is a serious form of in depth learning and usually requires considerable time, effort, seriousness, and technique. The lowest level of studying for the young is memorization (learning by rote) and the ability to reproduce in writing and sometimes verbally what one has learned. That process is usually required to pass school exams and is also useful for the process of becoming aware of one's interests and skills. Current schools in general have no special programs per se to improve the memorization and concentration capabilities, and the study and work habits of their students. Each year, depending on a particular school system, the capable students are promoted to a more demanding higher grade. Less capable students are usually permitted to move up in grade, but are simply left on their own to do the best they can. Poor students, of course, may not be promoted. Hopefully, a student’s graduation from high school means that he knows the broad basics adequately, so as to apply in the real world of what he has learned, and be able to get a job and earn an income. Some might continue with their education at the higher levels.
One of the most economical and effective ways to learn or study is through reading. It is therefore, important to acquire the reading habit and learn to read critically. There are all kinds of how-to books for effective reading, writing, listening, taking notes, and working on exams. Some are helpful and some are not. A well-written book will have correct facts and correct logical and psychological clarifications about its subject matters. Not all books are well written. There are technical books, especially in advanced and abstract subjects, which manage to get published despite the authors’ insufficient grasp of the fundamentals and garbled explanations. Nonetheless, those who read constantly and think critically can usually tell if a book is written well or not. It is difficult or impossible for any student new to a subject to profit from a poorly written book. The critical reader may then seek better books elsewhere.
A difficult subject matter to study may be broadly digested in three stages. The first stage is to study a topic sufficiently so one can begin to apply the knowledge gained and begin to accumulate related hands-on experiences. The second stage is to recognize areas of advanced knowledge that are less well understood and make extra effort to get more proficient in those areas. The third stage is to become an expert by maintaining an on-going study program to keep abreast of progress, or even carry out one’s own research and make new discoveries in the areas of special interest.
Someone studying a technical book must establish the habit of reading sentence by sentence and fully understanding and absorbing well-presented information. He must not skip sentences the moment the going gets tough and kid himself that his topic-by-topic reading of the book is complete. He might be finished with his reading, but his understanding of the subject is not complete and will have serious gaps wherever the subject matter becomes challenging. His command of the subject matter he studied is questionable, and even that which he initially vaguely understood is unlikely to stick around in his mind after a while. Whenever the reading gets tough for a well-written material, one should slow down and make greater effort to fully digest each and every word and sentence. Take as many brief breaks as required to mentally rest, but keep coming back and continue with the studying step-by-step until it is complete. In reviewing materials already studied previously, it can be a good idea to read a book or a chapter from the last page to the first. Anything not understood means that the underlying ideas explained in the book’s further front portions need going over again.
Many advanced technical subjects can initially be tough to digest and require enormous amount of information to be absorbed. To efficiently digest a subject under study, it pays to figure out the logical and psychological frameworks involved and the mental capacity required with that subject matter. Once those aspects are understood, it becomes much easier to absorb even a very large mass of information. As the saying goes, once a road is adequately paved, traffic will follow. The logic of a subject matter can usually be sensed from the structure and purpose of the subject. By studying the content and by scanning the book (or information structure) chapter by chapter, paragraph by paragraph two or three times, each time in more depth, one can usually ascertain the level of difficulty and the amount of information that is to be understood and internalized.
It is advantageous to be able to write well and accurately express one's thoughts, ideas, feelings, and emotions. Writing helps to precisely identify, formulate, and share one's own ideas, or to motivate others toward specific thoughts and actions. Also, by knowing what it takes to write effectively, a person can be a better judge of someone else’s writing. Writing skills require a person to be in an introvert mode while writing and to be analytical. A well-written book is a significant help for accurately assessing the difficulty of a subject matter. It is much easier for those who have critical reading habits to write effectively and vice versa. Even a technical or scientific person needs to write persuasive and effective proposals for projects. An administrator needs to write well and be able to judge the writing and thinking caliber of the people reporting to him. A person does not learn to write well overnight. The more a person writes reports, essays, etc., the better his writings are likely to be.
Psychological understanding of a subject matter is to know and to self-motivate why one should work hard (instead of having an enjoyable time in the park with beautiful friends) and for what purpose, and knowing that the task to be accomplished is doable based on one’s prior record in terms of intelligence, discipline, perseverance, and consistency. The metaphor framing used for a challenging study situation is depicted as climbing a steep learning curve. Just like scaling a steep and difficult mountain, one must not expect the hard learning process to be accomplished quickly or easily. A person then must carefully plan the learning routes and reserve the necessary time and resources needed to systematically attack what is to be understood and absorbed. Like a tough rock-by-rock climb, a tough study session requires frequent starts and stops and rests in between, and the student must pace himself correctly and persevere and keep attacking until the final objectives are attained. Knowing such psychological concepts makes it easier to endure the challenges ahead. After correctly sensing the difficulty level of the subject matter, a person can figure the average rate of realistic progress he can make, such as the average number of pages of a book he needs to read, digest and absorb to the desired standard of proficiency. And from the total pages he can then estimate the number of weeks or months required to digest it.
Effective studying requires training just like sportsmen require physical training. A person needs to train himself from childhood onward in building up an undivided attention span to cope with demanding mental workloads. His ability to handle meaningful stress has to increase as well. Unrelated or lower priority matters must not distract him while he focuses his attention on his top priority assignment. If the task at hand is quite arduous, he needs to pace himself and take regular breaks, or rests, but must persevere until the objective is completely realized. When a farmer plows a field, he does it till the task is complete. And, if it is a new field, he must put forth more effort to get rid of the “stones and other obstacles” that get in the way.
Many projects have interesting tasks as well as thoroughly tedious or monotonous tasks. There are many people who predictably fail whenever confronted with a sizable amount of dreary tasks, regardless of how bright they may apparently otherwise be. They simply lack the perseverance to survive tedious work, and always expect someone else to do it for them. Life is full of boring tasks, and one must cultivate the required SAMADHI to cope with any associated psychological unpleasantness. It takes years to instill the kind of mental discipline necessary to persist at each level of difficulty that a person will be confronted with. From his accumulated experiences, a self-guidance system which to enable him to estimate accurately how much effort and what resources he will need for each and every challenge, is to evolve. A person should learn to correctly pace himself to do work for more than eight hours a day for as many days as is required to meet the set objectives to which he committed himself to.
A person needs to be aware when he is not perfectly healthy or feeling underpowered mentally, emotionally, and/or physically. Accordingly, he needs to adjust to what he can realistically accomplish under such trying circumstances. Those who have systematically built up their mental stamina and endurance for many years are Mindful and are capable of making the correct adjustments moment by moment.
A person must immediately review the reasons whenever he encountered greater difficulty than anticipated either for study or for any kind of work. Is it because the quality or quantity of information is inadequate? Is it because his background knowledge is inadequate? Whatever the reasons are, they must be accurately ascertained. If the subject requires talent that is too high for him at that point in time, he may have to concede that he cannot continue with the subject matter. He must be very clear in his mind that whichever decision he reaches; it must not be because he is lacking in perseverance. He must be fully motivated to do meaningful work with which he can realistically cope.
When a person is learning a new subject, it is highly desirable to get the opportunity to acquire appropriate hands-on experience and the help of knowledgeable persons willing to discuss the many aspects of the subject, including job opportunities, networking with key people in the profession, etc. At the advanced levels of study, a person must have the Will to aggressively attack when learning a difficult subject.
A person has to build up his level of stamina and endurance regarding his capacity to do physical or mental work. It may take years to reach an expert level. Note that stamina emphasizes quality factors, standards, tolerances, etc., with meaningful quantity; and endurance emphasizes the quantity factor, usually of time or some countable numbers, with meaningful quality. Therefore, the capacity to do work somehow correlates with the product of stamina and endurance. To have “zero” stamina and “infinite” endurance is to have “zero,” productivity, for they operate upon each other. Turning it the other way around yields the same result. We must have reasonable stamina and reasonable endurance to do meaningful amounts of work. For example, a person should typically be capable of doing at least eight hours of quality work each day, day after day, five days a week, month after month, or year after year as required. Similarly, the amount of meaningful work correlates with the product of quality and quantity, as in the case for stamina and endurance. Standards are set in order that everyone will know the required minimum quality, or quantity. Only then can there be assurance that the quality of the work will be good enough and produced in adequate quantity, and at the same time, be economically competitive.
Work that has to be coordinated and assembled with the results of many other tasks must be produced above set minimum standards. Shoddy products have no use or value. The quantity of work that will be required, therefore, correlates with the total amount of (meaningful) work required over the minimum standards required. When we are learning or studying new major subjects, we do mental work in the most demanding manner. Mental stamina is the ability to focus one's attention to understand and absorb knowledge, and then develop the ability to apply that know-how effectively in the real world. Effort correlates with the quality of attention, time, energy, perseverance, and other resource factors that are required to complete the job as planned. In all forms of education, improving the capacity to do demanding work is at least as important as acquiring knowledge and skills. Yet this character aspect may be overlooked in quite a few schools.
People who possess creative or innovative thought processes are capable of capturing or coalescing elusive and nebulous concepts, solidifying and crystallizing them sufficiently for others to comprehend. They have the speed and clarity of mind to capture fleeting new perceptions, and to provide these thoughts with sufficient descriptions, and to “materialize” them into this LOKA. More often than not, they have a solid, in-depth understanding of the fundamentals, that is, knowing more than just the bare basics of a subject. Their mental stamina and endurance, work habits, skills, talents, and experiences are usually well above that of the average person, and they are self-driven to acquire the total knowledge for a subject. They have considerable analytical powers to solve problems, and their many levels of consciousness are in good alignment with each other and can be of aid toward sharper perceptions necessary for creativity.
Fundamental new advances come over time, and it normally also requires the support of organizations with resources. Societies in which gifted people can work together and be successful, must also have established forms of business, scientific, artistic, and humanistic cultures for promoting men to excel. Even then, there are only a few highly talented people in any area of expertise. Yet in every area of expertise, it is quite common to find a large percentage of self-styled "experts," who, in reality, are incapable of solving truly challenging and never before solved problems. Unfortunately, an average person will have difficulty in telling apart the real experts from the self-styled "authorities," and in many cases unaware of the pretenders that exist in every field of human endeavor. In order not to get hoodwinked, he should seek out second opinions regarding experts from other knowledgeable sources whenever possible. Thoroughly check out backgrounds and find out whether they have any real prior accomplishments.
There are some quite illuminating books that clearly explain the logic and scientific methods of theories, hypothesis, and experiments. Thoroughly learning the grammar of a modern language is another very useful exercise for the mind. Knowing more than one language helps a person not only improve his language capabilities, but also helps to expand his cultural horizons. A few related books are listed in the Suggested Reading list in Appendix B. These books are not meant just for the intellectuals, but will benefit anyone with good common sense willing to make the effort to comprehend them. ☼