As a Man Thinketh
Assessment by Rena Dedefo Buta (Ethiopia)
1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?
The main idea of the book, “As a Man Thinketh” is one man can shape its fate or man is the author of his own life either ascending to an excellence or descending to mediocrity. Success of a person starts from the thought; if he thinks good he would get a sweet fruit of success and joy and if he thinks evil he will get a poisoned weed and sadness swallows his life. A man’s character is a reveal of his thought. From thought a person will develop a habit and that habit will shape the circumstance that would affect his fate either positively or negatively.
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. Thinking good and positive towards people and everything in our environment.
When trying to step up to our success trying to be virtuous is vital for a magnificent success. As the writer literary explains ‘the universe does not favor the greedy, the dishonest, the vicious, although on the mere surface it may sometimes appear to do so; it helps the honest, the magnanimous, the virtuous.
ii. Avoiding fear and doubt
Fear and doubt is born from lazy thoughts. Without trial one could not identify his/her ability and develop that ability and strength. As the book tries to teach us one who conquer fear have conquered failure. A person starts his failure when he fears to try and make an effort towards his success
iii. Having purpose in life
Having a purpose in life means setting defined vision and goal that we want to meet in a defined time span. Our fate starts from our thought. In our thought if we define what we want and where to reach , it means we have started to be successful because thought will be crystalized and revealed by action which action shapes circumstance and the end result will be either success or failure.
iv. Taking risk without fear and patience and retry if not achieved
To be successful, one should take the risks and opportunities that could happen while trying to meet our goal
v. Sacrifice greatly to get higher result of success.
If we sacrifice less we get lesser result of success. If we sacrifice a lot we will get higher result of success. This implicate he who want to reach a higher achievement should work hard so as to reach that goal; every success is derived from an effort aimed for it.
vi. Developing way of achieving your goal from every failure or error.
We should not panic when we encounter failure in trying to achieve our goal.
Rather we should learn a lesson try other ways to achieve that goal.
vii. Taking every circumstance and shaping towards achieving my success.
When our action attracts circumstances in a positive way we should use those circumstances wisely to achieve our goals and desires in life.
viii. Building and changing the weak thoughts by good and strong thoughts to achieve my vision. The thoughts in our mined weather lazy and week thoughts or good and strong thoughts will decide our end result ( success or failure)
3. How will this ideas or lessons help you in a particular way, both in your daily personal life and in helping you to create better world? If so, how?
The above ideas will help me in my daily life to be strong in my positive thoughts and vision and to change every lazy thoughts in my mind which triggers failure.
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.
Yes there are two quotes that inspire me:
“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.”
Our success or failure starts from our thought because it is our thought that will initiate our action. If we think big and have a strong ambition, we will achieve anything we want to get.
“As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training, so
the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking.”
A person can change the way he thinks gradually if not once at all, lazy thoughts could be changed to strong thoughts if the person is ready to change and succeed. Repeated trial makes a person to be successful and perfect in doing that thing.
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?
No, the book will inspire for a new journey to success and motivates to change the way we think positively. It helps to eliminate the lazy thoughts in every struggling soul for success.
6. Did the book contain exercises for the reader to complete? If so, did you complete all of the exercises and did you find them helpful?
No, it only initiates to take change of attitude (thought) as an exercise; though I have started strengthening some of my good thoughts and eliminate the fear and doubt I have.
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 in general motivates the reader to assess his/her thought helps through how anything we think will shape our destiny. There are sentences that strongly define how our thoughts depict our destiny. But in my opinion it also should include how a person can change his lazy thought and dismantle the bad thoughts from good and diminish the bad one in order to be successful because in reality a person would have both bad and good thoughts in his mind while thinking of success.
Please rate the following questions on a scale from 1 to 10. Ten is good and one is poor.
A. How interesting was it to read? 9
B. How helpful were the contents? 10
C. How easy was it to understand? 8
D. Would you recommend it to others? 9
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 9
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Assessment by Rena Dedefo Buta (Ethiopia)
1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?
The author mainly tries to convey how a person should try substantially to succeed his dream regardless of how discouraging the outer environment seems. A person would discover a strength and way of fulfilling his objective from repeated trial and failure. There is a lesson learned after every step upward. The writer have tried to implicate that one should think of dreaming big and achieve it even he is out casted by others. When thinking big, as the proverb says at first people laugh at you, then they judge you then they start following you. At first you could face a tremendous challenge and discouragement even from your family and beloved ones you expect to support you; but if you are strong in going forward with your dream the discouragement will be changed to encouragement and the opposition will be changed to supporters.
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. Get a purpose to live for
It is very important to have a purpose of life because a person without purpose will live only to fulfill the purpose of others and one day when that reason is unavailable it leads the person to devastation and distress. Setting a well-defined goal will help us to know what we want and where to reach. Living without knowing your purpose is like sitting to learn without paper and pen. You can sit and listen to the teacher but you cannot practice or record the assignments given to you, which would be equally worthless like absent student.
ii. Know that you are beyond the ordinary you and discover your special gift through practice.
Everyone have a strength that can be revealed by practicing without fear. Developing this strength through many practices helps us to live purposeful life beyond the ordinary which most of the ordinary people think of. Anyone could live and ordinary life with a very less effort as most of his community lives. But the outstanding ones think out of the box, beyond the horizon and will sacrifice higher effort to achieve their dreams. Being a winner means being outstanding from our community and show them how to be a winner and teaching them the way they can achieve their good secrete dreams they think are nightmares because they think are unreachable.
iii. Do not fear of failure because it could bring you a new way of achieving your higher goal.
Success always comes after failure. One who fear to fail will not try and if you do not try there will be no success achieved. Rather when trying and you fail you should take a lesson from failure and change that lesson as an opportunity and new way of meeting your goal
iv. Look a problem as an opportunity to find.
When we face a problem usually we will complain about the problem rather than thinking of a solution for the problem. A winner sees a problem as an opportunity to come up with new idea of success. Every higher achievement is gained after reputed trial and failure. This is proven in history of people’s achievement.
v. Always upgrade your ability and set a new higher goal to achieve
While setting a goal we think of a goal for a time bound. It seems our ultimate goal we have set for the time being; but after we achieve the goal we set we should look forward to achieve higher goal again. Our ability always develops with trial and the impossible thing we think will be possible with patience and effort. As Jonathan Seagull as a winner, every level we reached after an effort seems heaven for the time being but after we reach that level we crave to see the next heaven of success. Every step needs our ultimate effort and in every step or level we rise strong for the next level we could see if we are ambitious.
vi. Believe that nothing is a limit.
If we believe there is nothing impossible and we are bound only by our belief and thought we could achieve an extra ordinary dream of our and be on the top of our “folk.” As infinity is the last number our dreams should not be limited by our present status either bodily or mentally. Every ability will be developed through practice. If one way of doing something is not working for us we should try of another way of achieving it. Through effort and trial the knowledge and ability will be developed. When we achieve a goal at a level we should not stop by being satisfied; we should set a higher goal to achieve and work as hard as we could till we gain another higher strength level. We should try achieving our goal towards perfection as we can define the perfection.
vii. Forgiving for those who discourages you and try to be a tackle to your goal will help us on going forward with our goal.
Every success will be gained after so many challenges faced. It could be cultural, religious or gender based challenges. We could be discouraged by our family and beloved ones, our community, after so many struggles and patience we would reach the goal we set. Through this struggle and achievement we should forgive and be positive for those who discourages us and tries to defy our journey to success. With forgiveness we could lead the community we came from to the heaven we have seen and the dreams they can achieve. When we do this there comes happiness and satisfaction. Teaching the community will help other outstanding dreamers to lessen their challenge.
3. How will this ideas or lessons help you in a particular way, both in your daily personal life and in helping you to create better world? If so, how?
These ideas help me to see beyond the horizon of ordinary and set a very strong goal towards higher purpose. Even though our community sees all new ideas and new habits with doubt showing them being individually a winner would help being a winner collectively as a community. As women in developing country the culture bias and the economy will somewhat be a challenge. But there is another main factor that is being a tackle on us; our own thought of being inferior. When an opportunity comes equally for men and women, women fears taking that opportunity in fear of their ability and challenges which comes with those opportunities. This book helps the readers to evaluate themselves that they have exhausted their effort to achieve their goals or they are making reasons for their failure. It will also help us to create a better world in that a problem in our world could be solved through aspiring leaders who are strong towards achieving personal goal and collective goal globally. If there is a strong leader towards better community in each community, the collective of them will build better world for all of the population.
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.
Yes: the author uses this when Jonathan teaches other gulls how to fly.
“Your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip is nothing but more than your thought itself, in a form you can see. Break the chains of your thought, and you break the chains of your body, too.”
It speaks how most of us are chained with our own thought and fear to try and test our ability. If we break the chain of our fear we could fly higher towards our success and excellence. This chain of thought may develop from less self-confidence or community ideologies. As we do not unleash our mind from such discouraging thought they will drag us down from ascending towards our success.
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?
No. the book is interesting to read and there is no difficulties I have faced in understanding it.
6. Did the book contain exercises for the reader to complete? If so, did you complete all of the exercises and did you find them helpful?
No, but it helps me to evaluate how hard and fast I have tried while taking every steps I make towards my vision.
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.
None.
Please rate the following questions on a scale from 1 to 10. Ten is good and one is poor.
A. How interesting was it to read? 10
B. How helpful were the contents? 9
C. How easy was it to understand? 8
D. Would you recommend it to others? 10
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 9