We are our memories

We are our memories. Aren't we ? Certainly, we don't remember much of what we experienced in the past or at least not our life in its entirety. What we tend to remember is the beginning, the end of an experience as well as its peak and low point. This is particularly interesting when you make a decision (for instance choose where to go on vacation). Daniel Kahneman explains it very well in his TED talk.

However I want to discuss a specific domain of our memories: personal knowledge. I do not only mean the classes which we (are supposed to) remember from our school time. I also want to talk about the learning process which we undergo every day and makes us who we are. Every book we read, every encounter we have, every thought we create can become a life lesson and thus progressively influence our life for the best or for the worst. As Matthieu Ricard says, the quality of a teaching can be found in the degree by which this latter becomes part of your life.

In my case, sometimes, after a sincere discussion, reading a book or writing in my journal, I had the feeling that I held a personal discovery. Sadly those realizations never became part of me. I simply do not remember most of them... The same can be said regarding the concepts from self-help or psychology books which I read. I failed to integrate them in my life and I even forgot that I failed to do it!

That is why I have a new idea. At the end of every which I am reading as well as some of the books I have recently read*, I am going to post a CSV data describing the most valuable insights of the book and share it on my blog. Moreover, using memory training apps such as Anki (or AnkiDroid for smartphones), you can review and memorize the core messages of the books or whatever you felt was important in your life.

I hope by doing so that I will become more aware where there is progress to be made in my daily life and apply the wisdom of my favorite authors when needed. Of course, this works best in complement to meditation so that you can notice the recurring patterns of thoughts which you have adopted and assess whether those latter are beneficial or not.
I'm looking forward to posting my CSV book summaries soon. In the meanwhile I wish you the best to learn from the past, appreciate the present and plan for the future (quote stolen from Phil Zimbardo). =D

KS
Daniel

*Here is a list of the books which I have read lately.