Time teaches the lessons books only describe.

Reading about something gives you the shape of it without the weight. You can understand patience, or loss, or how long a project really takes as a description, and still not know it the way that only comes from having been through it. Understanding and knowing sit in different places.

Keep reading, since descriptions shorten the route considerably. Just hold your conclusions loosely on subjects you have not lived yet. And be patient with whichever one you are currently inside, because that is the slow way anything gets learned.