Knowledge is Power

I have a bad habit. I'm sure many of us have it too. Anything that I acquire, I'm very excited about it initially. It could be a DVD player or a dress. As Marshall Brain sums it up beautifully, we have the excitement for material things sometime and eventually it dies.

Often, the main reason for this initial excitement is that the object is "hot" in the market. Yes, we fall prey to ads and peer pressure to go on acquiring new things forgetting we already have a lot more with us (as well as *in* us, but that is altogether a different topic).

By the way, some people (including myself and an avid reader) acquire books like that.

It applies to software too. When I hear about something hot, I go out of the way to buy or freely download, install and use it. But after a short while, something else becomes hotter and I totally forget that I have this one available.

This is how I recently discovered Microsoft Reader which I had installed almost two years ago and forgot. I was exploring my desktop programs aimlessly and suddenly stumbled on Reader. So, I opened it and somehow started reading a short story which I had read when I first installed the software. Titled "Knowledge is Power" written by Freeman Tilden, it is a quick read, entertaining and the theme is as relevant today as it was in 1900s, when this story was written. Incidentally, the theme closely matches with that of this post. I recommend reading it, available as free download for MS Reader. For those who don't want to install MS Reader, a web version is also available.