As a Man Thinketh
Assessment by Pacificah Moraa (Kenya)
1. What is the main idea the author is trying to convey in the book?
In the book of As a Man Thinketh the author elaborate about the power of our thinking (brain) how thinking is a powerful tool towards our daily lives. He states that mind is the master power that moulds and makes and man is mind and evermore he takes the tool of thought, and shaping what he wills, we define a man as per how he thinks and reason, your characters are portrayed on your mental (mind) outcome, in your mind of thinking it brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills, he thinks in secret and it comes to pass, environment is but his looking glass. In conclusion the outcome of anything in a man is what he/she as been thinking it comes out for us to see, what kind of a person you are through your actions of thinking.
2. What were the seven ideas which were personally most important to you and why? List these seven ideas followed by an explanation after each one as to why it was important to you, use personal examples from your own life.
i. Keep your hand firmly upon the helm of thoughts.
In the bark of your soul reclines the commanding master. He does but sleep, wake him, self–control is strength, right thought is mastery, calmness is power, say unto your heart peace be still.
ii. In all human affairs there are effort and there results and strength of the efforts is the measure of the result.
Chance is not gifts, power, materials, intellectual and spiritual possession are the fruits of the effort, they are thoughts completed, objects accomplished visions realized.
iii. The dreamers are the savior of the world, as the visible world is sustained by the invisible so men, through all their trials and sin and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers.
Humanity cannot forget its dreamers, it cannot let their ideals fade and die it lives in them, it knows them as they realities which it shall one day see and know.
iv. Success
A man may rise to high success in the world and even to lofty altitudes in the spiritual realm and again descend into weakness and wretchedness by allowing arrogant, selfish and corrupt thoughts to take possession of him.
v. Self-reliance
There can be no progress, no achievement without sacrifice and a man’s worldly, success will be in the measure that he sacrifices his confused animal thoughts, and fixes his mind on the development of his plan and the strengthening of his resolution and self–reliance.
vi. All that a person achieves and that entire person fails to achieve is the direct result thinking.
In a justly ordered universe, where loss of equipoise would mean total destruction, individual responsibility must be absolute.
vii. Until thoughts is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplished, with majority the bark of thoughts is allowed to “drift” upon the ocean of life, aimless is a vice and such drifting must not continue for him who would steer clear of catastrophe and destruction..
3. How will these ideas or lessons help you in a practical way, both in your daily personal life and in helping you to create a better world? If so how?
This ideas will help me to guard my thinking knowing that my brain and thoughts are powerful tools than atomic bomb, whatever we think we see the outcome which can be good or bad, positive thinking gives out positive result, so in my daily life I should be thinking positively in order to achieve my daily life, in anything we see today it started as a dream and put in to the reality, I am going to make my dreams come through but by taking action, our brain is the power house to create out future we want, anything good or bad we see is though our thinking, a person is defined by his or her thinking, we cannot see what you are thinking but we can see the result and conclude the way you think.
4. Quotes: are there any statements which the author made that particularly got your attention? If so please quote them and comment as to why they were important to you.
“He whose thoughts are controlled and purified makes the winds and the storm of the soul obey him when you control your way of thinking and thoughts when you are in the storm, or in a controversial situation, you turn things around and the situation becomes friendly and calm, I have seen people with bitterness and ready for confrontation but when they meet people with calm mind and thoughts, they make the situation to be friendly and come to an understanding, they solve conflict in a more mature manner without battles.”
“It does not matter whether it rains or shines or what changes comes to those possessing these blessings, for they are always sweet, serene and clam.”
“The strong calm man is always loved and revered.”
“He is like a shade giving tree in a thirsty land, or shattering rock in a storm, who does not love a tranquil heart, a sweet–tempered balanced life.”
“The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success.”
Calmness makes a man achieve whatever he wants in life, it makes you focus and aim at your goal without disturbance, our mind to perform well we need a conducive environment without distraction
“Your circumstances may be uncongenial but perceive an ideal and strive to reach it.
You cannot travel within and stand still.”
“Victorious attained by right thoughts can only be maintained by watchfulness.
Many give way when success is assured and rapidly fall back into failure.”
When we become successful we should be watchful to maintain it, it is easier to be successful throughout thinking but any slight mistake will pull us back to square zero, so we need to keep on thinking positively working positively, it is like tree, if we do not water the tree no matter how good or beautiful it looks like at the end of the da it will dry and die, so same with success, if we do not guard our thoughts, we will want probably to get more by use of wrong ways, either corruption or exploiting others, which will lead to our down fall, by losing all that you have worked for, it might have taken years but failing will take micro seconds.
“Doubt and fear are the great enemies of knowledge and he who encourage them, who does not slay them, thwarts himself at every step.”
5. Is there anything in the book that you do not understand or are unclear about, or are there ideas which you disagree with and if so why?
The book is well stated and clear it’s easily understood too.
6. Did the book contain exercise for the reader to complete? If so, did you complete all the exercises and did you find them helpful?
This is a life time exercise our brain is a very important element in our body the book contains a lifetime exercise whereby we should be very much alert on hat we feed our mind, how we associate with other people, how we solve issues in the society, also whatever we see is the way we think, we define a man by the action which are produced by his or her thoughts, pure thoughts gives out excellent results, crimes are committed through, evil thoughts.
We are in a society whereby people are faced with a lot of stress due to high cost of life, they think in an evil manner to achieve their dreams but which are short lived, so we need a clear thinking , clear solution in the world, people want to be wealth and this drives them to all evil thinking, to achieve wealth, some join cult groups in order to achieve a good life, whoever what we do not know is that we are capable of achieving our dreams I the right way by thinking positively, working hard towards our dreams and having the right friends who support our ideas.
When you think positively, group yourself to people who are thinking like you, people who are determined, people who will make you move from one point to another, people who will make you come out of your comfort zone and struggle to achieve your goal, people who will challenge you in a positive manner and encourage you but not discourage you, we need the right people to achieve the right goals, as the saying goes show me your friends and I will tell who you are.
7. Was there anything you read in the book that you would like to comment on that was not covered in the previous questions? If so, please comment.
The book is well covered and understood.
Please rate the following questions on a scale of 1 to 10. Ten is good and one is poor.
A. How interesting was it to read? 8
B. How helpful were the contents? 8
C. How easy was it to understand? 8
D. Would you recommend it to others? 8
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 8
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Assessment by Pacificah Moraa (Kenya)
1. What is the main idea the author is trying to convey in the book?
The author convey that in whatever we do we have the capacity of doing it without looking back on what others could say about us, not being obstacle by other peoples opinion, Seagulls, as you know never falter, never stall to stall in the air is for them a disgrace and is dishonor, determination in whatever we do it matters a lot, it doesn’t matter how many times we fail, but once we fail we stand up and aim higher.
2. What were the seven ideas which were personally most important to you and why? List these seven ideas followed by an explanation after each one as to why it was important to you, use personal examples from your own life.
i. Most gulls don’t bother to learn more than simplest facts of flight, how to get from shore to food and back again.
Once you reach comfort zone, you never want to struggle, and that is the beginning of failure. In our daily lives most people don’t want to struggle in life, they will be satisfied with what they have and limit their chance to grow and achieve more, they create ideas about how they cannot make it and justify the situation in which they are, and they get more excuses than reasons to aim high, some blame their parents not having a fortune to leave for them, some blame that they never had good educational back ground some blame where they come from, especially in Kenya most people will tell you they failed because of witchcraft that made them not to excel in life, however in the same environment we have those who have endeavored and doing pretty well, without any connections but hard work pays.
ii. This kind of thinking, he found, is not the way to make one’s self – popular with other birds.
This is very practical when you dream big, you will find some challenges from within but you have to keep on going towards your goal.
When you dream high you might become an outcast, people will call you names, because they will look at you in a different manner, they will think that you are totally crazy, some will say it’s a show off, because people don’t want to aim high, they don’t want to pay the price to achieve more in life.
You will even have less friends until you meet those who support your ideas and you are flocking together, so be ready to loose friends in your way to success because not all will support your achievement and not all will see your way of thinking.
iii. I don’t mind being bone and fathers, I just want to know what I can do in the air and what I can’t that’s all, I just want to know
Determination and being focused will make you achieve what you want.
In anything we do we have to focus, challenges will be there we will fail and sometimes feel that we should give up, but that extra mile makes a difference, nothing comes easily , a spider fails more than eight times to make the web, but it never gives up until it achieves what it wants, we learn through failure, the more we fail the more we are close to our goals, never give up, because the extra mile makes a difference between the hard working determination, you pay the price to achieve the goal.
iv. Why is it so hard to be like the rest of the folk
I have seen people move from the slum and leave a better life, have all they want in life, determination makes all work, so in life you can, move from anywhere and be what you want, sometimes, people want us to be satisfied, in our simple life, when you dream high they think, you are abnormal.
v. A strange hollow voice sounded within him, there’s no way around it. I am a seagull; I am a limited by my nature.
If I were meant to learn so much about flying I do have a seagull, I am limited by my nature
vi. There is a reason to life
We can lift ourselves out of ignorance; we can find ourselves and skill. We can be free, we can learn to fly. We need to define the purpose of life, why are we in this world? What is the purpose of life, what legacy do we leave in this world, once we know what we want in life it is easy to go for it and achieve it, nothing is so difficult once we have the right focus in our dreams.
vii. The price of being misunderstood, he thought they call you devil or they call you god.
When people misunderstand you they will call you names and you will be an outfit in the society nobody will want to associate with you, they see you as a stranger in the middle of many. You become lonely but once you keep your focus they will understand that indeed you and a reason as to why you did what you did, some will admire you for your courage, and will later be happy to be associated with you nobody, will like to be associated with failures, everyone needs to be associated with successful, people and they feel happy.
3. How will these ideas or lessons help you in a practical way, both in your daily personal life and in helping you to create a better world? If so how?
The idea will help me to go for my goals no matter what others are saying, and they will help me know that I am unlimited I can do more in life, without being intimidated, mostly people discourage us when we are going for our big dreams, they create a giant in our mind and what we see its impossibilities however we should give them deaf ears if we want to go high, starting something sometime we face challenges but at the end of the day we achieve what we want, nothing comes easily, anything good is worth fighting for.
4. Quotes: are there any statements which the author made that particularly got your attention?, if so please quote them and comment as to why they were important to you.
“To stall in the air is for them disgrace and it is dishonor.”
When we focus on our success anything that hider our progress is a disgrace, we have to fight to achieve what we want no matter how many times we fail
“The only true law is that which leads to freedom.”
“Break the chains of your thought.”
Breaking the chain of our thought which are negative, and being positive and optimistic is the way to go, sometimes our good thoughts conflict with fear, and we feel that we cannot make it but we keep on going, we erase negative thoughts in order to keep focused to our ultimate dreams.
“Everything that limits, us we have to put aside.”
In whatever we do, we try as much as possible to put stumbling blocks out of our ways, it might be, friends who keep pulling us down, we should cut the ties and focus with those who support our ideas and ready to pay the price.
“You will begin to touch heavens.”
The moment you achieve what you wanted then people start believing in you, most people will start associating with you and also they will be proud to be in your company, before you achieve what you want you will meet a lot of negativity people will term you crazy or you have abnormal ideas, but once they are fruitful you will get the same people praising you and want to be your friend.
5. Is there anything in the book that you do not understand or are unclear about, or are there ideas which you disagree with and if so why?
The book is well stated and clear it’s easily understood too.
6. Did the book contain exercise for the reader to complete? If so, did you complete all the exercises and did you find them helpful?
The books contains life time exercise, we need to know that we are able to do whatever we want without other people judging us, also we have to be unique in our own self, we are gifted differently and we can do more than we can imagine. The book is a guide and a learning process to achieve our dreams and goals, without looking back.
7. Was there anything you read in the book that you would like to comment on that was not covered in the previous questions? If so, please comment.
The book is well covered and understood.
Please rate the following questions on a scale of 1 to 10. Ten is good and one is poor.
A. How interesting was it to read? 8
B. How helpful were the contents? 7
C. How easy was it to understand? 8
D. Would you recommend it to others? 8
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 8