Somewhere along the way I heard something that made a deep impression on me. “People with small minds talk about other people. People with mediocre minds talk about things. But people with great minds talk about ideas.” Who wants to have a small mind?
So I formed a lifelong habit. I turn to the editorial page of the newspaper first. Maybe it says something about you, where you start reading a newspaper. And, opinions are a lot more interesting than the daily news cycle anyway. If you want to know what smart people paid to write are thinking, the op-ed page is the place. Opinion opens a window on the writer’s mind.
Jim Mattis, former U.S. Secretary of Defense said, “If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you.” That is a no bullshit statement.
Of course life is never simple. There’s an exception to every rule. One of the smartest guys I ever encountered was in my class in the MBA program at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Hanging out together, I soon noticed, when he opened up the newspaper, he went straight for the comics!