Navigating life’s waters can be fraught with shoals, tides, and headwinds. The astute ship’s captain learns by observing and documenting the events of the voyage in the ship’s log, providing a true-to-life record of those challenges and how they were overcome. Before GPS and satellite weather maps, the logs of those who had come before were priceless, allowing all sailors to become better at sea.
We all can learn something from those of an earlier generation, whether in their writing, storytelling, or simple observations. And yet real learning occurs when we assimilate such information for ourselves, developing our own opinions and working to apply them.
Both the sea captain and those of us who are on our own personal voyages must move beyond the theoretical. We must put what we have learned into practice. To do so requires that we eventually move from opinion to action…