Most of us have one or two areas of knowledge that we strive to know

very well things related to our jobs, of course, and maybe a hobby or two. But while its
important to develop a deep understanding of the things that matter most to us, it is just as
important to develop a broad understanding of the world in general.
A lot of unfortunate people think that learning for the sake of learning is something for
schoolchildren, and maybe college students. All the things there are to learn and know that
dont impact directly on their immediate lives they dismiss as trivia. Out in the real
world, they think, theres no time for such frivolities theres serious work to get done!
There are a lot of good, practical reasons to make learning something new a part of your daily
routine, but the best reason has nothing to do with practicality we are learning creatures,
and the lifelong practice of learning is what makes us humans and our lives worthwhile.
If that idealistic musings not enough, heres some more down-to-earth benefits:

Learning across a wide range of subjects gives us a range of perspectives to call on

in our own narrow day-to-day areas of specialization.

Learning helps us more easily and readily adapt to new situations.

A broad knowledge of unfamiliar situations feeds innovation by inspiring us to think

creatively and providing examples to follow.

Learning deepens our character and makes us more inspiring to those around us.

Learning makes us more confident.

Learning instills an understanding of the historical, social, and natural processes

that impact and limit our lives.

And, like I said, theres the whole making like worth living thing.

There is, after all, a reason the term well-read is a compliment.

With the entire world of knowledge just a few mouse-clicks away, it has never been easier
than it is right now to learn something new and unexpected every day. Here are a few simple
ways to make expanding your horizons a part of your daily routine:

Subscribe to Wikipedias Featured Article list. Every day, Wikipedia posts an

article selected from its vast repository of entries to its Daily-article-l subscribers. If
you were a subscriber today, you would have recently discovered that Daylight
Saving Time was first proposed by William Willett in 1907 and adopted during World
War I as a way to conserve coal. You might have also been interested to find out that
Kazakhstan discontinued Daylight Saving Time in 2005 because of alleged health
risks associated with changed sleep patterns.

Read The Free Dictionarys homepage or subscribe to its feeds. The Free
Dictionary has several daily features on its front page, including Article of the Day
(RSS), In the News (RSS), This Day in History (RSS), and Todays Birthday (RSS).
One recent days stories told the history of the Hells Angels, the identity of the new
7 Wonders of the World, the origin of the first cultured pearl, and the life story of
one of the worlds most prominent tenors.

Subscribe to the feed at Your Daily Art (RSS). Every day youll be confronted with
a classic work of art to contemplate, along with a few notes about the piece. If you
were subscribed right now, you might have recently seen Man Rays intriguing and
playful Le Violin dIngres and Frank Weston Bensons luminous Red and Gold.

Subscribe to the feeds at Did You Know? and Tell Me Why?. These sites are both
run by an R. Edmondson, who certainly knows a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff.
Updates are slightly less than daily, but I like the two sites so much I couldnt leave
them off this list. If you were a subscriber to these sites, youd have recently learned
why clouds are white, what the European Union is, the French terms for the days of
the week and the months of the year, and the history of the development of public
health efforts in response to the hazards of the Industrial Revolution.

Listen to podcasts like In Our Time and Radio Open Source. Radio Open Source
is a daily interview/panel show covering everything from politics to science to art and
literature to the greatness of the movie Groundhog Day. (At the moment, Radio Open
Source is on summer hiatus, but subscribe anyway theyll be back!) For a history
of the events and ideas that shaped the present, In Our Time is ideal: a weekly
gathering of scholars discussing subjects as diverse as the life of Joan of Arc, theories
of gravity, and what we know about the Permian-Triassic boundary. Subscribe to a
handful of good, literary podcasts and get smart while you drive!

Check the directory at Elite Skills for more sources: there are college course podcasts, online
documentaries, foreign language lessons, and more all free. Believe it or not, your head
will expand to fit whatever you try to stuff into it!
Which is really the whole point.