What if we already know more than we think we do?

I grew up somewhere between being spiritual and being logical.

I never really chose one over the other.

At home, there were books everywhere. Books about the mind. About meditation. About purpose and the meaning of life. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Books about thinking big, wealth, possibility and the power of the mind. Magazines like Ramnashree. Books on yoga, pranic healing, reiki and nutrition. Ideas about how what you think shapes what you become.

I wasn’t exactly a disciplined reader when it came to non-fiction books. I’d read a page here, a chapter there. Sometimes half a book. I’d understand some of it, get bored with some of it, and move on.

I certainly wasn’t sitting there thinking, This is going to shape who I become. But perhaps that isn’t how learning always works. Some things don’t become knowledge immediately. They sit somewhere quietly in the background.

And maybe, without realising it, I was absorbing much more than I thought.

Looking back, I wonder if some of my empathy came from that environment. From constantly being exposed to the idea that there is something happening beneath people’s behaviour. That the mind matters. That people have an inner world. That there is more to life than what is…