I can't possibly see reading Hegel being a good idea for a beginner. It'll just lead to thinking philosophy is intentionally obtuse. He's basically impossible to parse without taking a philosophy course. http://existentialcomics.com/comic/281
The biggest value I got out of being a philosophy major was building reading concentration skills - being able to read dense passages takes a lot of commitment and practice, and that can build thinking skills. The internet teaches us to skim and do fast/shallow reading, which doesn't lead to deep thinking. Reading older philosophy is a great way of building those deep reading skills, even if the actual content of those texts is not applicable to modern life.
To the OP, if you see this, I would suggest looking into Experimental Philosophy. It's a branch of philosophy that focuses on using neuroscience to understand how we think about the world. Books like Thinking Fast and Slow may be much more interesting to you.