Books vs Life

Reading books is well and all, but real understanding is only through experience.

Reading a book is like listening to the person that wrote it. It gives you access to the thoughts of people that you normally never could meet, never could have as your mentors, people who had the experience and did great things.

There are two caveats, however:

First, every situation is different, and sometimes you may end up like the generals that are perfectly prepared to fight the last war: you will have to come up with own new ways to do things. You will have to think on your feet. You will have to keep your eyes and ears open and soak up information for your specific situation. Still, many things do not change that easily, at least about people and how they behave, and you can learn something.

Second, listening to somebody telling you how it is doesn't mean you get it. You have to experience the thing first to really understand what he is talking about, and to turn the theoretical statement into something you understand in your guts.