30 Days to Better Thinking and Better Living Through Critical Thinking: A Guide for Improving Every Aspect of Your Life, Revised and Expanded

Day Twenty-Nine. Educate Yourself

Although many people complete many years of school, including undergraduate and graduate studies, few people are truly educated in the highest sense of the term. Why? It is because few people have learned how to learn meaningful ideas. They are not learners for life. Instead, they form belief systems and then defend their beliefs for the rest of their lives. There is little development in their views. They do not expand the horizons of their minds. To the extent that they do develop, they tend to do so in certain narrow or technical ways (such as learning skills for succeeding on the job, or learning skills needed for a hobby). They lack the intellectual skills and traits unique to an educated person.

“A human ...