吾尝终日而思矣,不如须臾之所学也;吾尝跂而望矣,不如登高之博见也。
Most of us have one or two areas of knowledge that we strive to know very well — things related to our jobs, of course, and maybe a hobby or two. But while it’s important to develop a deep understanding of the things that matter most to us, it is just as important to develop a broad understanding of the world in general.
大多数人有我们努力想掌握一到两个领域的知识 —— 当然跟我们的工作相关的,也可能是一些爱好相关的。但是对我们最重要的事情有深刻的理解很重要,对世界整体有更广泛的理解也同样重要。
A lot of unfortunate people think that learning for the sake of learning is something for schoolchildren, and maybe college students. All the things there are to learn and know that don’t impact directly on their immediate lives they dismiss as “trivia”. Out in the “real world”, they think, there’s no time for such frivolities — there’s serious work to get done!
很不幸,有很多人认为为了学习而学习是幼儿园的小朋友干的事,也可能是大学生。很多学习和掌握的东西不能立竿见影地影响他们的生活,因此被视为“琐事”。在“真实的世界中”,他们认为没有时间做这种轻浮的事情——而是有更重要的事情要做!
Benefits of Learning Something New
学习新东西的好处
There are a lot of good, practical reasons to make learning something new every day your habit, but the best reason has nothing to do with practicality — we are learning creatures, and the lifelong practice of learning is what makes us humans and our lives worthwhile. If that idealistic musing’s not enough, here’s some more down-to-earth benefits:
有许多好的,可实践的原因能让每天学习一些新东西成为你的习惯,但是纸上得来终觉浅,绝知此事要躬行(这句话我翻译的美妙绝伦啊!哈哈!)——我们是终身学习的生物,并且终身学习才能让我们成为人,我们的生活更有意义。如果那样的理想主义思想还不够,这里是一些更接地气的益处:
Learning across a wide range of subjects gives us a range of perspectives to call on in our own narrow day-to-day areas of specialization.
Learning helps us more easily and readily adapt to new situations.
A broad knowledge of unfamiliar situations feeds innovation by inspiring us to think creatively and providing examples to follow.
Learning deepens our character and makes us more inspiring to those around us.
Learning makes us more confident.
Learning instills an understanding of the historical, social, and natural processes that impact and limit our lives.
And, like I said, there’s the whole “making like worth living” thing.
学习更广泛的学科,能够让我们在日复一日的狭隘的专业领域中获得更广泛的观点。
学习能帮助我们更容易和轻松地适应新环境。
对不熟悉的情况有广泛的理解能够激发我们的创造性思维,提供我们有章可循的范例,从而促进创新。
学习能升华我们的人格,让我们对周围的人更有启发。
学习让我们变得更自信。
学习使人们了解影响和限制我们生活的历史,社会和自然过程。
而且,就像我说的,整个过程都是“值得生活的东西”。
There is, after all, a reason the term “well-read” is a compliment.
毕竟,“读得好的”一词是一种称赞。
可以通过以下途径每天学习新知识(不翻译了。。)
5 Ways to Learn Something New Every Day
With the entire world of knowledge just a few mouse-clicks away, it has never been easier than it is right now to learn something new and unexpected every day. Here are a few simple ways to make expanding your horizons a part of your daily routine:
整个世界的知识,随便动几下鼠标就可以获得,学习新东西从来没有这么容易过。以下是几个日常拓展你的事业的简单的方式:
1. Subscribe to Wikipedia’s “Featured Article” List(维基百科)
Every day, Wikipedia posts an article selected from its vast repository of entries to it’s Daily-article-l subscribers.
If you were a subscriber, you could have recently discovered that Daylight Saving Time was first proposed by William Willett in 1907 and adopted during World War I as a way to conserve coal. You might have also been interested to find out that Kazakhstan discontinued Daylight Saving Time in 2005 because of alleged health risks associated with changed sleep patterns.
2. Read The Free Dictionary’s Homepage or Subscribe to Its Feeds(免费字典)
The Free Dictionary has several daily features on its front page, including Article of the Day , In the News, This Day in History, and Today’s Birthday.
An example story is about the history of the Hell’s Angels, the identity of the new “7 Wonders of the World”, the origin of the first cultured pearl, and the life story of one of the world’s most prominent tenors.
3. Subscribe to the Feed at YourDaily Art
Every day you’ll be confronted with a classic work of art to contemplate, along with a few notes about the piece.
If you subscribe, you may read about Man Ray’s intriguing and playful “Le Violin d’Ingres” and Frank Weston Benson’s luminous “Red and Gold”.
4. Subscribe to the Feeds at Did You Know? and Tell Me Why?
These sites are both run by an R. Edmondson, who certainly knows a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff. Updates are slightly less than daily, but I like the two sites so much I couldn’t leave them off this list.
If you were a subscriber to these sites, you’d have learned why clouds are white, what the European Union is, the French terms for the days of the week and the months of the year, and the history of the development of public health efforts in response to the hazards of the Industrial Revolution.
5. Listen to Podcasts like In Our Time and Radio Open Source
Radio Open Source is a daily interview/panel show covering everything from politics to science to art and literature to the greatness of the movie Groundhog Day. (At the moment, Radio Open Source is on summer hiatus, but subscribe anyway — they’ll be back!)
For a history of the events and ideas that shaped the present, In Our Time is ideal: a weekly gathering of scholars discussing subjects as diverse as the life of Joan of Arc, theories of gravity, and what we know about the Permian-Triassic boundary. Subscribe to a handful of good, literary podcasts and get smart while you drive!
原文链接:https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/learn-something-new-every-day.html
吴一清/译