This week, I want us to briefly take a look at a very serious dying art...the lifestyle of reading. And not just reading, but reading of materials that have the potential to help improve our lives.
"Young people today are as bright and quick and potentially teachable as ever. The problem is they are no longer readers. They are watchers. Their most influential classroom is the TV screen. With each passing year, they know less and less about more and more." (BOB ORBEN)
How apt and frightening the above statement is.
Back in the day, when we were kids growing up, reading was very much important; pretty much important as it still is today. Unfortunately, the advent of technology seems to be taking more of a negative toll on the minds of many these days than making a positive impact. We all seem to prefer the quick glances at TV screens to get what we perceive as a faster and better way to learn, a more 'proactive' way of saving time and avoiding the rigors of sitting or staying in one place for a reasonable period of time with books to flood our precious minds with the much needed information capable of empowering us for life.
Technology has inundated us with several gadgets and devices that, I presume, were meant to help improve life; yet these gadgets and devices have more or less carried us to other realms of activities that seldom empower our minds, especially when it comes to reading, as we are too concerned with playing with these devices than learning with or through them.
Everyone's life is a direct reflection of his or her mind. And our minds must continually be in very healthy states and conditions for our lives to reflect the same. You will be in serious error to think that all you need in order to have a dream life, is to have the cars and houses and money in their millions or billions. You will be in serious error to think that all you need is to have a vast cache of acquisitions that can be flaunted before people and thus catapult you on to the stage of one of the best on the planet. But at some point in time of your life, you will come to realize that nothing will ever compare to your having a healthy mind; a mind that can help you scale through issues and challenges because it has the capacity to do so. A mind that can make you stand out and thus naturally make you the attraction you probably may deserve. A very healthy mind.
For that to be possible, you will need to learn the art of reading. And am not just talking of you reading only to pass a class course or exam for academic grades, but you being able to expand the horizon of your mind by digging into books and reading materials that can empower you.
Our generation has really become very lazy. It's even the reason why many students continually make woeful grades during their SSCE and JAMB exams. And they even carry the lazy spirit into the universities and other tertiary institutions where, aside from exams malpractices, they don't have any hope of making it. It is also on the backdrop of this that some lecturers themselves have thrived in their quest to drain students of their pocket money or torment others for sex before helping them with grades for them to pass exams.
Quality reading is important for a quality mind to emerge. And such reading isn't ever possible if discipline is lacking. Good discipline is time-sensitive. You must be willing to spend good time reading good materials and books to help build up your mind.
Instead of the tons of man-hours we spend on social media every day (and am not saying social media is bad), we could actually spend a good portion of such hours feeding our minds with positive and healthy information; information that could see us become the best we can ever be tomorrow.
Thirty minutes a day or even an hour of quiet reading can help develop your mind positively. Try to commit yourself to it and see the great impact it can make to your life. There is no alternative to quality reading if you
want to have a better future.
A healthy mind makes you an attraction and not a distraction. It empowers you to the point where your options of opportunities become vast and not limited. It boosts your confidence as you wake up each day to face it because you know you are prepared to face challenges. It helps you stand tall in the midst of others and takes away any form of intimidation from you.
Commit yourself to quality reading today instead of being distracted by the many excitements that abound all around us in many ways... and that end up not being of any good whatsoever to our lives.
You really should pause and ponder on this...
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