As a Man Thinketh
Assessment by Alice Ondieki (Kenya)
1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?
In this timeless classic, the author explores the profound impact of our thoughts on our lives. Through concise and insightful prose, he delves into the power of our minds to shape our destiny, emphasizing the importance of positive thinking and personal responsibility. With practical wisdom and thought-provoking ideas, this book serves as a guide to harnessing the potential within ourselves to create a life of purpose, success, and fulfillment.
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. Your future is in your hands.
You might think that outside influences shape your destiny, or that everything is almost pre-designed, but if you think that way you’re missing out on something pretty huge. “As a Man Thinketh” teaches us that your destiny isn’t written in the stars, as romantic as it sounds, but instead it is in your own hands. You get to shape it, you get to write it, you get to create it.
ii. They themselves are makers of themselves.
Everything that you are, everything you hold dear to you, comes from what you think. This includes the things which are planned and the things which happen spontaneously. Allen tells us that if you make the right choices in life and you put forth the effort, you will go to heaven. If you don’t, and if you abuse life and place effort in the wrong places, you will go to hell.
iii. You are in control of your own destiny with your thoughts and actions. Wake up and realize it before it’s too late!
That basically means that the keys to your destiny, both in life and beyond it, are in your hands and you get to decide what you’re going to do with them. Even when things aren’t going so well, your attitude and decisions shape your future. Did you know? The true meaning of the Bible passage “as a man thinketh, so is he” relates to a person’s true nature and that what you see isn’t always what you get. It’s about what they are on the inside.
iv. Negative thoughts will poison your mind
Your circumstances certainly affect your mind, but you can choose your actions. Allen compares this situation to a garden. You can either choose to look after the garden, tend to it, weed it, water it regularly, or you can leave it to grow into a state of disarray. If you choose the former, the garden will bloom with flowers and look fantastic. However, if you leave it to fall into ruin, the garden will become overrun with weeds and become unruly. Your mind is the same.
v. A Persons Character is the Sum of Their Thoughts
“A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.” To put it simply, we are who we are because of our thoughts. Our thoughts influence our emotion which govern our actions and behaviors.
Everything we do in our lives can be traced back to a single thought.
Whether our actions are spontaneous, unpremeditated, or deliberate, they all stem from our thoughts.
You don’t get successful; you become successful. Likewise, you don’t wake up one day committing crimes; you become a criminal. Thoughts have a direct correlation with our identity, and our identity is our destiny. “Man is a growth by law, and not a creation of artifice.” Artifice: “clever or cunning devices or expedients, especially as used to trick or deceive others.” We can act and speak words that deceive people of our truth, but it is our thoughts that make us. We only grow into the person we want to be perceived as by the thoughts which consume our mind the most.
vi. Circumstance Doesn’t Create a Man, They Reveal Him
“Thought and character are one, and as character can only manifest and discover itself through environment and circumstance, the outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner state. This does not mean that a man’s circumstances at any given time are an indication of his entire character, but that those circumstances are so intimately connected with some they are indispensable to his development.”
We are not at the mercy of our circumstances; we create them. There is only a limited amount of circumstances we’re born into, of which we do not choose. Our parents, our location, and how we’re raised are a few, but it is our choice of thought that cultivates an unlimited possibility of circumstance we experience later in life. Many people are born into the same circumstances, yet only a few will discover they are the master-gardener of their soul and director of their life. As soon as we’re able to leave home and make our way in life, we can choose the life we want to live.
Unfortunately, by the time we reach this age, we have picked up all the habits and beliefs of our parents and the way we see ourselves. If we were raised to take responsibility for ourselves and developed a healthy self-esteem, then we will probably make better choices and create a fulfilling life. If, however, you are one of the unfortunate ones (like myself), childhood could have resulted in a poor self-image, crippling attachments, and unhealthy habits. It’s then common to feel like a victim to your circumstances, and believe the only way out is for someone of something to save you.
You know, like in the movies.
This is the difference between the two mindsets, which is that one person is working from the outside in and the other is working from the inside out. When you work from the outside in, you see the circumstances in your life as happening to you. Bad things happen and it makes you feel bad. Good things happen and it makes you feel good. The alternative is to recognize that you have all the control from within and the choice to feel good no matter what’s happening. Yes, bad things might still happen, but you choose not to let it affect you because you don’t take it personally.
vii. A Life Without Purpose Leads to Worries, Self-Pity, and Failure.
Without a purpose, we drift in life not knowing our destination. “Aimlessness is a vice.” And to those who hold true to a vision and purpose, avoid the shortcomings of what an aimless life brings them. When we have no path to walk, we wander around, allowing our thoughts to run our minds. And if we allow our minds to be run by our thoughts, they take over our lives and produce a weak man with no self-control. A life purpose with an aim to accomplish it produces thoughts that strengthen our character, which holds us accountable to see our purpose through to the end. Those who think with purpose recognize failure as a pathway to its attainment. We must fail to see our purpose come to fruition. Those who think weak thoughts without purpose fail before they begin.
Life without purpose or a reason to do things prevents us from being aware of when we are going off course. Life with purpose keeps our eyes on the ball and attention on our thoughts. When the right thoughts wane, the intensity of our vision loses its power.
We can easily get into doubt, fear and self-deception if we don’t know what the future holds and great things in the future cannot happen without correct thoughts and a solid purpose for living.
viii. We Don’t Get What We Want in Life, We Get Our Habits of Thought
“All that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his thoughts.”
We only achieve things through unconscious repetition. If our thoughts are filled with lack, unworthiness, doubt, and sickness, we manifest only what they reflect.
We can only achieve what we are. Someone who thinks of confident thoughts, abundance, wellbeing, and compassion for others, become those things.
When we impress these thoughts deep down into our subconscious, they become a habitual and we can only act in accordance to what is second nature.
Our first nature is instinctual and if our basic needs go unmet in adolescents, unworthiness and lack produce thoughts of their kind. If these thoughts go unnoticed and left to roam wild, they become habitual and our destiny. For us to evolve past the point of attaining our own basic needs, we must take responsibility for our mind and choose our thoughts carefully. Unhelpful thoughts that rule our life can only live on when we don’t attend to them.
We are not our thoughts, but the witness and master of them. When our minds rely on thoughts to feel alive, we become addicted to them, identifying with them and what they say. This identification and addictive tendencies manifest in the physical world.
We turn to other addictions to complete the cycle of habitual thinking, whether it be drugs, alcohol, an activity, or relationships.
Psychologist Carl Jung once said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
We are doomed to repeat what isn’t made conscious. When we become conscious of how our mind has operated and we can directly link it to unwanted experiences, it becomes easier to let go of who we once were. But it doesn’t come without sacrifice.
We cannot make progress without sacrifice because any kind of achievement takes effort and the willingness to become the person who can achieve them.
Old ways of being need to be purged and grieved and bad habits that no longer serve us must be turned into ones which serve our highest good.
ix. Your Life is the Sum of Your Vision and Ideals
“You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.” Up to this point in the book, Allen speaks mainly of our past and present.
Whether it be our current circumstance, character, health or self-image, they can all be traced back to thoughts about the past or present. Chapter four touches on thoughts of worry and failure, which are said to be thoughts driven by fear of the future.
But to think of the future without fear depends on our strength in Vision and Ideals.
To hold a vision of ourselves greater than our past failures and worthier than our present self-esteem is to bring that vision into existence. Becoming aware of our thoughts and making a choice to change them creates a new vision for ourselves.
When we realize the influence of our thoughts, we imagine a different and brighter future. That vision is the driving force for new, empowering thoughts and the attainment of our deepest desires. You imagine a new version of yourself in your vision and that version of you deserves everything you’ve ever wanted.
New thoughts arise from that vision and you become that what you think of and visualize most. “The Vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart this you will build your life by, this you will become.”
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?
These ideas will help me to tame my brain and know that how I think and act matters very much, I have to be positive in order to get positive results.
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.
“As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them.”
“Act is the blossom of thought; and joy and suffering are its fruits.”
“Man is made or unmade by himself.”
“Man is the master of thought, the molder of character, and the maker and shaper of condition, environment, and destiny.”
“Man’s mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed-seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.”
“Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires, so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts.”
“The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own.”
“Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.”
“Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.”
“Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results.”
“Law, not confusion, is the dominating principle in the universe; justice, not injustice, is the soul and substance of life; and righteousness, not corruption, is the moulding and moving force in the spiritual government of the world”
“The world is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combinations of colours, which at every succeeding moment it presents to you are the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your ever-moving thoughts.”
“A sour face does not come by chance; it is made by sour thoughts.”
“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.”
“Doubt and fear are the great enemies of knowledge, and he who encourages them, who does not slay them, thwarts himself at every step.”
“He who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure.”
“A strong man cannot help a weaker unless that weaker is willing to be helped, and even then the weak man must become strong of himself; he must, by his own efforts, develop the strength which he admires in another.”
“By the aid of self-control, resolution, purity, righteousness, and well-directed thought a man ascends; by the aid of animality, indolence, impurity, corruption, and confusion of thought a man descends.”
“He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much; he who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly.”
“Many give way when success is assured, and rapidly fall back into failure.”
“Humanity cannot forget its dreamers; it cannot let their ideals fade and die; it lives in them; it knows them as the realities which it shall one day see and know.”
“To desire is to obtain; to aspire is to, achieve.”
“Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.”
“The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good.
“People will always prefer to deal with a man whose demeanor is strongly equable.”
“The strong, calm man is always loved and revered. He is like a shade-giving tree in a thirsty land, or a sheltering rock in a storm.”
“Only he whose thoughts are controlled and purified, makes the winds and the storms of the soul obey him.”
“Self-control is strength; Right Thought is mastery; Calmness is power.”
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 books is well stated and easy to understand it is a nice book and very informative.
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 exercises.
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.
Nothing else.
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? 9
C. How easy was it to understand? 9
D. Would you recommend it to others? 9
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 9
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Assessment by Alice Ondieki (Kenya)
1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is an ode to self-determination through transcendence of the body and discovery of the limitless nature of the mind and the spirit. Jonathan longs to be in control of his own life and govern himself independently of his hegemonic, small-minded Flock
What the author explains is, One morning, while a flock of seagulls is flying around a fishing boat trying to snatch little pieces of food, a young gull named Jonathan is flying all by himself, adjusting his beak, body, and wings to learn how to fly as high and as fast as possible. This sets him apart from other gulls, who normally only learn as much flying as they need to find food; even Jonathan’s own mother and father chide him for not being more like the rest of the Flock.
Jonathan tries to listen to his parents, but he finds flight hard to resist; within a few days, he is once again away from the Flock and hard at practice. He begins diving from great heights in an attempt to fly faster than any other gull; he eventually breaks 90 miles per hour, but loses control while pulling out of a dive and crashes into the ocean. When he comes to, Jonathan is in despair and nearly gives up on his dream. However, while flying back to shore, he suddenly notices he is flying at night—something seagulls never do.
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. The majority are not always right
Jonathan refuses to be like other seagulls who fly just to get food. He wants to fly higher and learn new flying techniques. This choice of life is contested and derided by the whole flock, including his own parents. Nonetheless, Jonathan’s choice will prove to be the right one.
ii. Sometimes loneliness is our friend
Jonathan refuses to conform to the crowd and turns away from the other seagulls who would stand in his way and prevent him from achieving his goals. This choice involves a long period of solitude. However, it is during these moments that Jonathan learns to master the art of flying.
iii. Helping others to be better makes us better
Once he has learned the true art of flying, Jonathan, instead of taking pride, feels a moral duty to go back and teach the other seagulls everything he has learned. He is not afraid that others may fly as high as he does, but wishes happiness for all.
iv. When we abandon those who do not deserve us, we find those who are most similar to us.
At the end of his journey, Jonathan finds himself in another dimension surrounded by seagulls who, just like him, want to fly high and are moved by higher feelings. With them he can finally relate happily and share the joy of his conquests.
v. The purpose of life is to improve ourselves
Jonathan understands that living is not about surviving, but about awakening our potential and becoming the best version of ourselves. Improvement requires dedication, perseverance and courage, but it is the real meaning of our lives.
vi. “Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding. Find out what you already know and you will see the way to fly.”
vii. He sought to teach others and share what he knew even when others were against him and he was considered an outcast by his very own gull community.
He showed forgiveness, and with forgiveness, we let off massive weights of hatred from us that may not let us move forward.
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 know that whatever I want to do it is in my powers so I do not need any permission for me to excel, also it tells me that determination matters a lot in anything we do if we want to do something badly we should be determined no matter the obstacles.
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.
“Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding. Find out what you already know and you will see the way to fly.”
“You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.”
“Your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip, Jonathan would say, other times, is nothing 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.”
“We choose our next world through what we learn in this one. Learn nothing, and the next world is the same as this one, all the same limitations and lead weights to overcome.”
“Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect. and that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.”
“Jonathan Seagull discovered that boredom and fear and anger are the reasons that a gull’s life is so short, and with those gone from his thought, he lived a long fine life indeed.”
“Why, Jon, why? his mother asked; Why is it so hard to be like the rest of the flock, Jon? Why can’t you leave low flying to the pelicans, the alhatross? Why don’t you eat? Son, you’re bone and feathers! I don’t mind being bone and feathers mom. 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.”
“Sully, for shame! Jonathan said in reproach, and don’t be foolish! What are we trying to practice everyday? If our friendship depends on things like space and time, we’ve destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now.”
“A moment later Jonathan’s body wavered in the air, shimmering, and began to go transparent. “Don’t let them spread silly rumors about me, or make me a god. O.K., Fletch? I’m a seagull. I like to fly, maybe.”
“Instead of being enfeebled by age, the Elder had been empowered by it; He could outfly any gull in the Flock, and he had learned skills that the others were only gradually coming to know.”
“Instead of our drab slogging forth and back to the fishing boats, there’s reason to live!
We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill. We can learn to be free! we can learn to fly!”
“Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even got the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting, or power in the Flock? A thousand lives, Jon, ten thousand!”
“By morning the Flock had forgotten its insanity, but Fletcher had not. Jonathan, remember what you said a long time ago, about loving the Flock enough to return to it and help it learn? Sure. I don’t understand how you manage to love a mob of birds that has just tried to kill you. Oh, Fletch, you don’t love that! You don’t love hatred and evil, of course. You have to practice and see the real gull, the good in every one of them, and to help them see it in themselves. That’s what I mean by love. It’s fun, when you get the knack of it.”
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 books is well stated and easy to understand it is a nice book and very informative.
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?
None.
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? 8
B. How helpful were the contents? 9
C. How easy was it to understand? 9
D. Would you recommend it to others? 9
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 8