Inspirational & Educative Articles
The single most important misconception about memory is that it is limited. Our idea of memory is more like the information we save inside a storage device. Some of the assumptions we have about memory are:
- The space available to store the information is limited.
- There is a certain fixed way of storing the data.
- Too much of input at one time corrupts the system
- The older the data the more difficult it is to retrieve it.
All these might be true about your hard disk in your PC but not about your memory.
Human memory works very differently. The glue that sticks information together; events, people, places, time, distance and everything else is Emotion. It is emotion that gives connectivity, logic and meaning to events. Let’s understand this through a few simple examples. The memory of your bed is connected to your emotion of tiredness, the memory of food is connected to your emotion of hunger, the memory of an accident is connected to your emotion of pain; without a connecting emotion, it is impossible to recollect information.
Recollection is simply a way of linking emotion to information. The more stronger the emotion, the more easier it is to recollect. To put it even more simply, if you are finding it hard to recollect something, it only means that the emotional connectivity required is either weak or missing. Try this, recollect where you were on 24th February 1996, and now recollect one painful moment of your life; see which one is easier to recollect. You will see that it is infinitely easier to recollect things if it can be linked to emotions.
If you have to recollect something that is not personal, let us say your exam preparation content, you can do it easily by creative emotional involvement. Instead of just reading through tons of material impersonally, involve yourself and connect emotionally to the content. Become that lawmaker who is making the law, become that victim of a crime, become that poor old man whose life depends on a pension, become that activist who is struggling to save those trees. The more personally involved you are into something, the more easier it is to remember.
More than just enhancing your memory, becoming personally involved and emotionally connected with things brings out your true nature and refines your personality. Anybody can sit in the comfort of their rooms and pass judgement on how things are run; It takes courage, passion and understanding to personally involve yourself into situations. By personally involve, we don’t mean to say that you physically go and handle them 🙂 you can creatively, emotionally and psychologically connect with them.
If you are wondering as to how you can become personal about some news you are watching on television that is happening thousands of miles away; just remember, all learning involves personal emotional connectivity. The only way to learn is to personally connect. If you are going about your preparations just for the sake of it, and not getting involved, then you should not be surprised if you are finding it hard to recollect things.
Bring your emotion into your preparations; laugh, sing, cry, worry, get frustrated, complain, ask questions – do whatever you want, but involve yourself emotionally. If you can do this, then memory is the last thing you need to worry about. As a last cautionary note – Don’t sit and cry in front of your television news channels, now that you need to be emotionally involved with things 🙂
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