Investing in your mind
A preacher once said you must invest in your mind to move forward. This is in consonance with what the great Andrew Carnegie once said:
There is a power under one’s control that is greater than poverty, greater than lack of (formal) education, greater than all one’s fears and superstitions combined; it is the power to take possession of one’s own mind, and direct it to whatever ends one may choose.
Man, if he chooses to, could be the master of his fate, according to Shakespeare. Dr. Sidney Newton Bremer, a man whom I consider as a mentor (on paper), couldn’t have been any more correct when he also said that the biggest room in the world is the room for self-improvement.
When the sun rises, it rises for everyone. In the same way, knowledge is there for everyone to grasp –but you must be inquisitive enough to go searching for it, as it will never come searching for you!
How to obtain the Light of Knowledge
The means of acquiring knowledge are endless, and go beyond the four walls of a school, even though that is the usual means through which formal knowledge is acquired.
Many have been known to tutor themselves in the art of reading and writing, having been denied the opportunity of going to a ‘proper’ school. If this is true – and I know it is – then it follows that just about anyone can tutor himself on any matter. The underlying requisite factors are interest and a burning desire to attain the knowledge.
You can therefore learn through books, seminars, close association with knowledgeable people, tapes and CDs, private tuition, and many other such means.
Mark Twain once said that the man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read, so the mere fact that you can read grants you no advantage in the realm of knowledge acquisition.
The beauty of education
Education, apart from giving light, does one thing no other experience has been known to do: it stretches the human mind into unprecedented levels. And the human mind, when thus stretched by an idea or combination of ideas as education does, never regains its original dimension. That is the reason for the popular saying that education is the best legacy you can bequeath on anyone.
Attitudinal change
The simple reason the educated or enlightened man ‘behaves’ differently from an uneducated one is that illumination, as is generously provided by education, changes the inner attitudes of a man’s mind, and by so doing changes the outer aspects of his life.
So grab an education today. And it is never too late to do that. I did hear of a certain Nigerian who got his first degree at age 76! Now can you beat that? Do you still think you are too old to get an education now? I guess not.
Also do not despair that you are ‘lowly’ now. Listen to Oliver Wendell Holmes: “The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.”
And to this, I dare add that you only ask yourself the following questions regularly:
“Where am I headed?”
“If I continue doing what I’m doing now for the next ten years, where will it get me?”
He who does not advance, recedes – Latin Proverb
Until next Friday, keep being INSPIRED in His presence!
