One way I’ve changed since I was younger is that back then if I were reading something and I didn’t understand it, I just could not go on until I made sense of it. I mean, anything. Even in fields that I knew nothing about. In some ways, this benefited me as I learned a great deal with my pure stubbornness but it also held me back. There’s finite time in life. I don’t need to know everything, even if I were capable of such a thing.

Now when I run across something complex that I don’t understand, I try to grasp it, and then if I can’t I evaluate if I actually have any real need to comprehend it or deep interest in the topic and then if the answer to these questions is “no,” I just move on. Admittedly, this is not all that common, but just not bothering trying to understand everything in the world makes more time for those things that really matter and that can actually improve my life.