What's best to understand is that C++ is simply a tool to solve complex problems, like any programming language. You should use C++ to learn universal development concepts such as design patterns and algorithms, concurrency, memory management (may this isn't so universal anymore :P). Now that you have a basic understand of C++ you can use it to dig into these higher level concepts through reference example.

Oh, and check out the STL and templates, they are pretty much the most awesome thing in C++, but can be difficult to digest.