Embracing the Past: Learning from History and Becoming Enthusiastic Admirers of Our Ancestors' Stories

Picking up a history book and reading what transpired hundreds or thousands of years ago puts you in that time and place. You feel like you are there when you’re reading. Especially when the writer is good. Making you feel the emotions and see the world they traveled through.

It’s one of the superpowers of reading. More so than any other medium, you put yourself into the time and place of the writing. You are right there because you have to generate the images in your mind, so it becomes internal. Which is why reading is so powerful.?

In reading history we see a lot of the same struggles across time. Personal strife and anguish. Difficult decisions. In today’s world with our modern conveniences, we still don’t remove the inter-personal strife that exists. We still don’t remove hardships or the perception of them.?

It was hard to travel in America 100 years ago. Today, we complain when our flight gets delayed and it takes a few more hours to get home. Rather than the months, it would take to walk across the country.?

Reading this perspective is important. It shows how much can be done even when travel takes months. In books I’ve read you read about Benjamin Franklin traveling back and forth to Europe. The trip each way takes a month or better on a ship. J.P. Morgan did the same.

Or that to go on vacation or hunting, they would travel a month to get where they wanted to go. Hunt for 2-3 weeks and then make another 3-week journey home.

Today, we are hard-pressed to get a few days off of work. In the pace of today’s world vs the pace 100+ years ago, I don’t know what the answer is to how fast you move or how much you take in. All I can say is that these great men of history took large swaths of time just to travel to their destination.

Whether the lesson is that we should enjoy the journey more, or the lesson that we don’t have to be hasty in our decisions. Or it could be that we should travel more, even in our own region.?

Maybe, the biggest lesson is to read more and gain these different perspectives from those who came before.