It’s OK Not To Understand Everything You Read
I’ve recently been reading Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. It’s a really interesting book and it’s applicable to everyday life in many ways. But I need to be honest with you: I don’t understand all of it. And that’s OK.
Completionism
Some people seem to experience an obsession with understanding everything they read. I know, because I’m one of them. I often adopt a completionist mindset towards reading, where I need to cover every page and understand every idea before I can move on.
There is an odd appeal to this kind of behaviour. It feel somehow natural, but maybe that’s just because it’s been my default mode of operation for as long as I can remember.
Don’t get me wrong — you should try to understand as much as possible from a book in order to get the most out of it. And there are many good reasons for reading books that are more complicated than what you are comfortable with.
But getting the most out of a book comes from trying to understand it, not the understanding itself. It comes from the struggle, not the end result.
I’ve been trying to increase my reading speed recently, and I have noticed the completionist mindset to be one of the significant limiting factors. I will often stop reading, go back, reread, spend a couple of minutes thinking about an idea. By the time I start reading again, I might have figured out the detail that stumped me, but I’ve lost some of the context around it and the main stream of ideas of the chapter I’m reading.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with working through ideas deliberately. For new or complex ideas, it’s the only way to achieve understand. And as I said, it’s this struggling that really matters. But the question is when and where is a good time and place for doing think type of intense and deliberate thinking.
A good approach for me seems to be reading through everything first, whether I understand it or not, and then going back to fill in the gaps once I have the big picture. This applies to books, but also to articles, podcasts, etc. This avoids completionist behaviour, while still allowing you to strive for as much understanding as possible.
Embracing the Unknowns
I’m willing to take this a step further. I’d argue not understanding everything the first time you go through a book can actually be useful in mapping out the broader concepts.
Being aware of where the gaps are, and to an extent how big they are, can help you focus you attention on the things that will improve your understanding the most.
If you’ve read The Black Swan, you are probably familiar with the idea that knowledge you don’t have is more important than knowledge you do have. Nassim Taleb talks about an antilibrary — a collection of books that you have never read.
There is good reason to have an antilibrary. But you can also extend this idea for the process of reading a single book. Whether explicitly or not, you can keep track of the ideas that you understand and those that you do not.
Keeping track of difficult unknown concepts will give you a more objective picture of your understanding on a subject. It has the added benefit that you are letting your brain work on ideas in the background, paving the way for connecting the dots in the future.
The easiest way to do this? A simple list. Make a note or page in whatever your favourite note-taking medium is, and keep track of all of the ideas you didn’t quite get as you were reading.
You can keep track of these mentally as well, but be aware that you certainly will lose track of some of them. A simple list works because it ensures ideas won’t slip through and even the act of creating it will force you to be more aware of what you do not understand. It’s the most value for the least effort.
Of course, there will always be things that you don’t know that you don’t know, and that’s OK too. There is no reason to feel anxious about the unknown unknowns, since you cannot do anything about them. Just make sure that, once you come across them, you add those ideas either to your arsenal of understanding or your antilibrary.
Experiment!
Okay, let me wrap up my babbling. What I wanted to emphasize most is that reading anxiety is normal, and also unnecessary.
It’s OK to feel stressed about finishing an entire book, understanding everything it has to say, or reading everything that comes your way. These are quite common, at least from what I’ve seen.
At the same time, it is also important to realize that these behaviours might not be helpful. They might be narrowing your focus, and preventing you from acquiring and applying useful ideas.
I’d urge you to experiment. Pick up a really complex book, read through it quickly, and see what your mental map of the ideas looks like. Notice the gaps, are realize that they are a normal thing to experience. Then go back and fill them in, or better yet, leave the book and come back at a later date!
The point here is to realize that it’s not scary to live with a lack of understanding, and that it can actually be fun to play around with the unknowns. I find this sort of mindset — letting my ignorance live and unestablished ideas brew — stimulates my curiosity and desire to learn in a more effective manner than putting undue pressure on myself to understand everything I read.
It might do the same for you. Try it out!
I appreciate that this whole topic is a bit vague, but I hope you managed to get something useful out of it. I would love to hear any and all thoughts, so feel free to leave a comment or get in touch.
You attention is valuable — thank you for investing it with me!
This article is part 14 of my 50 Bad Articles initiative, where I write 50 crappy articles in 50 days, in an attempt to kickstart my writing journey.
