4 Ways We Learn from Beyond the Grave

One of the greatest ways to learn how to live an abundant life is through the positive contributions you allow others to deposit into you. You may have heard a person say, I want to learn from experience, as long as it is someone else’s experience and not all my own. This especially works in the area of negative experiences.

We would like to learn lessons, without the damage that the experience leaves behind.

The contribution of experience I am talking about is from those who lived before our time and left a legacy of treasure from the life they lived. Below are 4 ways we can access those experiences.

Storytellers
These are persons who have the gift of memorization and use it to take in and give out information passed down through generations. Both my grandmothers were these type of people. They listened intently as children into adulthood and became sponges of information. They knew history of places, people, events, and family among other items. Sometimes they wrote down the information or kept press clippings, weddings and funeral documents.

What qualified them as a storyteller was the ability to not only remember detail, but when you hear them speak you were drawn into that time and place they spoke about.

You began to imagine the stories because of their expressive recollection.

The final item was they always ended the story with a lesson to be learned as a result of telling the story.

Writings
These are authors of books, magazine articles, newspapers and any written experience of a time past. Often they are no longer living but the life they have breathed into the written word gives us experiences to learn from. The authors are as varied as the people they appeal to in reciting their knowledge.

The appeal of a book is that it can be passed down from one generation to the next and yet we discern the lessons of the writings on different levels.

Certainly we learn more according to our own age, background, experiences, and the ability to relate to the author. Another plus of writings is you can study in the privacy of your own home or a library if you choose.

As well the written experience is powerful in that whether we agree or disagree with the author the experience they share with us is an anchor of thought, in that the words do not change so the message stays pure. It is the “glasses” used to read them that mature over time. This way lessons from their experiences can have an effect throughout life.

Biographical Experts
Have you ever listened to someone that seemed to be an expert on a particular person of history? Persons like Abraham Lincoln, Elvis Presley, Benjamin Franklin, and Mother Teresa all have admirers who felt particularly passionate about finding out the essence of these historical icons.
From their speeches, to quotes, behaviors, and other actions we hear the living bringing back the experiences of these persons.

One of the added pluses is biographical experts tend to give a more accurate interpretation of who their subject is and what we can learn from them.

Museums
For those who have a short attention span, don’t mind reading a little at a time, and want to learn a lot in one location, a museum might be the place for you.

Let’s look at some of the positives. Museums pride themselves on factual information. They often have guided tours by trained personnel. You can drop out the tour if you want to stay at a particular exhibit longer. Others around you tend to have general interest in the same things, so this promotes peer support. As for access you can come back again and again.

These are not the only ways to take advantage of past experiences but one way may appeal to you more than others. Either way, I hope you learn from the experiences of others who have gone on and one day have your experiences passed on as well. Have you made yourself Timeless?

Let me know if you enjoyed this post by sharing your thoughts in a comment.

 Hi! My name is Vonzel Sawyer. I am a husband, father, and grandfather. I started blogging to share from my experience, knowledge, wisdom, instruction, and understanding to help persons maxamize and magnify the positive in their life. That is why I used the terms "maximum" and "magnification" and combined them into a single word "maxafication". Just like something can be magnetized or winterized. I want to impact people to live largely and fully each day!