Happy New Year everyone! Going into 2014 I want to share one of my favorite quotes from Sherlock Holmes writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He said: “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”
Think about your brain attic: Is it cleaned and streamlined, and filled with only the things and people who are most important to you? Or does it look like an episode of ‘Hoarders’?
I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions, but as I start 2014 I plan to give more serious thought to the careful construction of my mental attic.
Happy New Year from The Love Detective!
