The director also had a "knowledge anxiety" for fear of missing something back then, subscribing to a bunch of courses, and placing a bunch of books on the bookshelf. Not only would he study when it was time to study, but he would also listen to books while walking, brushing his teeth, eating, and doing everything, and he had to play at double speed.

To be honest, the fact that he could realize this is a problem is already a big step forward. Because according to the director's experience, many people nowadays have this kind of anxiety, but they don't think it's a problem. It took the director a long time to realize that this is a problem that needs to be corrected.

A problem is already half solved when you see it, but what's really scary is that it's a big problem, but you don't think it is, until it really brings you a big trouble.

Well, to get back to the point, the reason why this classmate is so anxious is actually already answered in his message, and the answer is "afraid of missing useful content." Why be afraid of missing it? The core is still greed. He's still okay, only paying attention to more than 30 accounts, but the director had hundreds of books on the bookshelf at the beginning, 23333. As long as he has such a mentality, even if he can really read more than 30 accounts, he will still be anxious.

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Why? Because there may be tens of thousands of useful accounts in this world, in addition to accounts, there are courses, books, if holding this may also be useful, that may also be helpful mentality, even if all the time in this life is only used for learning, it is not possible to do it.

Nan Huaijin once said that greed for knowledge is actually a kind of greed; Zhuangzi also said, "My life is also a boundary, but knowledge is boundless; with a boundary to follow the boundlessness, it is dangerous." Human life is limited, knowledge is infinite, with a limited life to chase infinite knowledge, it is not advisable.

What is the essence of greed for knowledge?

So the question comes again, why are we so greedy for knowledge?

The answer behind this is actually the fear of falling behind, or wanting to be in front in the ranking game of human beings.On the one hand, we feel that if we don't learn these things, we will fall behind because we haven't learned them while others have; on the other hand, after learning these things, we will have a sense of superiority, thinking that we know more than others, and also feel that learning these things makes us better, can improve cognition, and thus in terms of wealth, status, and other aspects of the ranking, we will squeeze forward, which is actually the real motivation for our so-called "hard work" but at the same time very "anxious".

As long as there is this ranking mentality, or the mentality of chasing, anxiety is inevitable, because this is a never-ending cycle game without an end.

Firstly, regarding the fear of falling behind, let's think carefully, is falling behind really so terrible? In today's society, can you not live if you fall behind? In today's China, it may not be too difficult to starve to death! Especially friends who can become readers of "Value Office", the basic conditions are not bad, absolutely not poor, at least a well-off level, not only can't starve to death, but also live a relatively good, worry-free life, so what else is there to worry about?

It's just that if you fall behind, you are afraid of being ridiculed, but in fact, will it really be so? The director remembered when he was in high school, the school would arrange exam rankings, and every monthly exam would post the rankings of all the students in the grade downstairs of the teaching building. The director was particularly disgusted with this ranking list at the time, especially when he failed the exam, he was afraid that others would see it and have an inexplicable sense of inferiority.

But soon the director found out that no one cared about your ranking, just like the director didn't care about the rankings of other students, only looked at himself and the top few students, and other students only cared about their own rankings and how much the gap was with the students in front. No one has the mood to care about you, everyone really cares about is always only themselves, even if someone cares about you, it will never be the person who ridicules you.

You desperately want to prove something to others, but others don't care at all, isn't that very funny?

After discovering the "secret" of the ranking list, the director no longer felt that the ranking list was dazzling, and it was bad, and then the next time he did well.

Eliminating the fear of falling behind, let's look at the chasing game again, we want to catch up with others, this is even more disgusting.

A long time ago, the director found that people are jealous of others, if you want to compare with others, then it will never be over. When you finally reach a position, you may be happy for a moment, but this happiness will soon disappear, because it is no longer interesting to compare with people who are worse than you, and at a new level, you will come into contact with more excellent people, and this chasing game is endless. This is also the reason why many listed company chairmen, many people who seem to be very successful in our ordinary people's eyes, are still anxious, because they may be compared with people on the Forbes list.

Once we start to let go of the obsession with comparing with others, we can truly go at our own comfortable pace.Interestingly, when we truly break free from the cycle of comparing ourselves with others and follow our own pace, we can actually learn more and progress faster.

Not chasing, not only is there no anxiety but also one can move faster.

In the reply from the director to that friend, there is such a sentence, "Let's think about it, after seeing so many things, how much can we remember, and how much can we truly practice. I can tell you the truth, it must be very little, or almost none."

Why say such a sentence?

Think about it, after learning so much, if we forget it all in a few days, isn't there no difference between seeing and not seeing?

Even if we can vaguely remember a little bit, if this remaining bit cannot bring some change to our lives, isn't it also equivalent to having no effect? If "understanding so many truths still can't live a good life," what's the use of understanding these truths? To tell others?

This is similar to many wealthy women around the director who feel empty every day and buy some supplements to eat. Not only can they not make up for it, but they also have indigestion and cause a lot of unnecessary problems.

After understanding this point, we will be clear that learning is not about how much we learn every day, but how much we absorb. If we really study with a pragmatic attitude and absorb, the amount of our learning will naturally decrease, and we will only look for the most suitable things to learn at the current stage, so as to ensure the maximum absorption.

Speaking of which, the director also adds one more sentence, if we are ambitious and look for things that are not suitable for ourselves at the moment, not only can we not absorb, but there may even be a counter-effect, after all, many times higher-dimensional things are contradictory to lower-dimensional things, and it is also very frustrating.

When you really start to learn with an absorbing mindset, you will find that there is not much to learn every day, because what can be digested and absorbed is really very limited, but even if you can only digest and absorb a little bit, it means that you are really making progress every day, as long as you are a little bit better tomorrow than you are today, that is enough.Charlie Munger has long said: A person truly worthy of admiration is not those who have always been very smart, nor those who hold high positions and have strong abilities, but those who make progress every day, and who are always a little better today than yesterday.

Making a little progress every day, not regressing, not standing still, is essentially compound interest. Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. It may not be noticeable at first, but as time goes on and accumulates, once it reaches a critical value, it will suddenly grow rapidly, and finally pull a huge gap with the majority behind. In fact, the gap between the real big white horses in the capital market and other companies is also opened up in this way!

So, this road seems slow, but in fact, it is the fastest road because we are using compound interest. Therefore, the subtitle of this section is "Not chasing is not only not anxious, but also can walk faster."

In addition, the director would like to say a word here.

Many people are judging others to lie flat, but as a modern person, the director thinks that the "chasing anxiety" similar to the above text is much more terrible than the so-called lying flat.

If a person can really lie flat 100%, and can be happy every day even if they do nothing, and do not worry about their "lack of progress" at all, and immerse themselves in their own world "enjoying themselves", in fact, there is nothing wrong with it. People enjoy themselves, and it does not affect you. You are not qualified to criticize others, life is your own, as long as you are happy, anyway, it is difficult to starve a person in modern society.

However, many people's so-called lying flat is actually an escape, just feeling that they can't do anything, so they simply do nothing, and their hearts are not really willing to lie flat. As a result, the more they lie flat, the more anxious they are. Now, the vast majority of people who claim to be lying flat are in this mentality. The director has contacted several people who do not work and lie flat all day, and none of them are "enjoying themselves", but more are anxious to the extreme, and some even suffer from depression and anxiety disorders.