Why books are bad for you

So often people fight against change and have all kinds of reasons for it. Apparently the ancient Greeks (Aristotle, Plato and friends) thought books were bad.

They thought that having books would stop people bothering to learn things off by heart.
Judging by the people who come along on my workshop “Improve your memory now and for the rest of your life” I would agree.

What surprised me the most recently was that on one of the workshops not a single person knew anything off by heart. Absolutely nothing. They professed to be amazed that I could recite an entire poem. So the Greeks were right.

Memory

The trouble is that not using your memory does mean that you get out of the habit of remembering things. Having a good memory is all about using tools and techniques to remember things.

If you use the right tools and practice them you can improve your memory quite drastically in a very short space of time. 

On the workshop there is a little memory test where you do your best to remember a series of 20 words. Most people who come on the workshop manage to improve their score substantially over the three hours. Some even double it.

It’s not magic, it’s just trying out a few techniques.

So are books really bad?
Of course books in themselves are not bad. What is bad is letting your faculties go, becoming lazy and allowing yourself to go into decline.

If they didn’t like books, what would the Greeks have said about TV? Personally I love watching something good on TV. But I wouldn’t want to sit all day every day watching TV, though it would be easy to do.

It would be easy to stop using my memory. I have a phone that does my shopping lists and reminds me to do just about everything. So it’s very tempting to get lazy. Then you find that, when you need it, your memory doesn’t work.

The trouble is that, if you are not careful, these useful tools become crutches.

Once you become totally reliant on them you are lost when they fail or are taken away.

I used to work with a chap who had had polio. He walked with two sticks. He told me once that he had been offered a wheelchair several times by well-meaning medical staff. But he never accepted. He said; “Once you get in a chair, you never get out.”

Improve your memory now. Get the recording of my teleseminar "How to Improve Your Memory"