Life Deposits

Life Deposits: Discovering Treasure in Meaningless Experiences

 
Ever wonder if there’s any value to those seemingly meaningless experiences you find yourself occupied with throughout your life? I do and I’ve discovered that though they seem meaningless, they are anything but.

I find myself intrigued many times after looking back at youthful experiences and discovering how valuable they were to my development. Experiences like high school football that taught me why teamwork was so important, how effectiveness in individual roles can determine a win or loss, and how to push beyond what I perceived as my physical limitations to finish the game, became a strong foundation that help set the course of the rest of my life. A job at a local McDonald’s as a teenager not only taught me practical things like how to cook & clean but also taught me key career skills like how to manage money, inventory, and most importantly, people. What experiences like these have you had?

Take a piece of paper and write down 10-20 seemingly meaningless experiences you’ve had in your life. Next to each experience, write down what you learned from that experience. Take a few more seconds and try to remember times when what you learned from that past experience has been used more recently. 

After you do this simple exercise, you may be surprised to find that what seemed like a meaningless experience was actually a life deposit that helped shape who you are today! Every learning experience, even those that seem the most irrelevant, not only changes our behavior but also changes our brain. A 2000 study by Brown University scientifically proves this.

“In the study, published in the Oct. 20 issue of Science, Brown University researchers taught rats to reach into a hole in a box to grasp food pellets, a new motor skill for the animals. After five days, the rats were tested (Science Daily, 2000).”

“The researchers found that not only had the animals’ behavior changed, through the learning of a new skill, but that their brains had also changed. Associated with that learning, the strength of synaptic connections between neurons in the motor cortex had increased through a process consistent with the use of LTP (Science Daily, 2000).”

Wow! This is an amazing find! When you learn a new skill not only does you behavior change but your brain changes as well! Understanding this may change the way you look at mundane tasks such as housekeeping, home repair, or helping your kids with their homework! I encouraged you to start making some more life deposits today! Subscribe to a magazine about a topic you know nothing about, take a night class at a local vocational school, or help a neighbor fix his garage. Just do it and watch yourself grow!

Reference:                                                                                          

Brown University (2000, October 20). Study Describes Brain Changes During Learning. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 19, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2000/10/001020092659.htm