365QOD-Day20

"...in the doing of it once you know how but in coming to know how and then in keeping aware of what you have discovered"- Zen and the Art of Happiness

I started reading this book today and found this statement very powerful.  It was specifically intended on the topic of happiness but after reading it I couldn't stop thinking about how general it is so I dropped the first part of the quote.

In my life I have learned many things BUT only applied a few.  I believe that knowledge is not power.  Application of knowledge is power.   This is how one gets rewarded for learning.  Unfortunately, as kids we are encouraged to continue learning and learning as a way to better ourselves.

Recently I have stopped reading for learning sake.  I have instead started to drive myself to apply what I read.  So, I read the page and the moment the sentence stood out to me I applied it by writing his blog.  A couple of weeks ago I was reading the book KaChing and instead of mindlessly reading it I applied it by creating this blog.  It seems to me that a better cycle would be to learn, to apply, to modify, to apply, to learn, to modify, to... 

Books teach us many lessons.  Unfortunately, after we learn the lesson we store it in our subconscious mind and only remind ourselves that we have already learned it after we had to deal with a situation that required it.  We remind ourselves of it and promise to never forget the lesson in the future.  However, we often repeat and repeat it until it becomes ingrained.  The reason for this is we did not put ourselves in situations where we had to repeat the experience and apply the knowledge until we mastered the lesson.

Today's question is:
"What lesson do you need to apply?"