Editing in Lightroom

I have Adobe Lightroom installed on my computer, but in truth, I have no idea how to use it. I import, I export, and I have no clue where the files are going. There are endless sliders with titles that mean nothing to me. Aside from contrast, brightness, and saturation I might as well be reading Japanese. To the best of my understanding Lightroom is used mostly to edit color and light, while Photoshop takes it a step further by allowing users to add/move/remove entire objects, among other things.

While I have no desire to become a post-processing wizard, cropping out objects and pretending they were never there, I wouldn't mind learning some basic skills to improve the quality of my photos. For instance, sometimes I'll trash an otherwise solid photo because one area is under or over exposed. And up until now, the only way I've known to try to adjust that is by changing the exposure, which affects the entire frame and doesn't really help. However, Lightroom allows the user to adjust "Fill Light" or "Blacks" - enhancing just the areas that need work, which can salvage a shot. You can brighten a dark area without making the already bright areas too bright. And you can darken a bright area without making the already dark areas too dark. There's also a slider titled "Recovery" which saves (recovers?) otherwise lost dark areas and diminishes overblown highlights. How it does this? No clue.

Here is an image of my friend Adam that I edited in about 5 minutes this morning in Lightroom. Honestly, if it takes more time that that it's not worth it to me. I changed the color scheme (Sepia) and added some vignetting to draw the viewer's eye to the subject. I still think it's a little overexposed, but I'm just practicing at this point so I'm not too worried about it.

Don't worry, this isn't the beginning of me over-processing my images and becoming obsessed w/ every little detail. I think I just have to me more opened-minded to the benefits of some minimal, yet quality, post-processing.