I can remember when I started perfecting my reading skills as a child, the kinds of books I enjoyed reading those times were fiction dramas, novellete and novels. I could read novels from cover to cover visualising every word of the author in my innocent imaginations.
However, there were some kinds of books I never enjoyed reading and they were books on religion or self development. I thought them to be extremely boring having no imaginary works in them. I kept ignoring those kinds of books despite the fact that we had a stack of them in my father's study. I could remember trying to read one of them which I collected from my dad's shelf. The book seemed too slow for me and the manner with which the author wrote each page made it even more worse than my expectations. It felt like reading an economic text book which appears to be something I would not do on free will.
How My Mindset Began To Change
In my first year as a college student, I was part of a reading community which really changed my mindset about judging a good book by the the first two pages. In this community, we would all pick one book on self development and read it up in a specific time. After reading, we would gather at our meeting point to discuss the content of the book, clarify ambiguity and make honest reviews. It was at this period that I had to begin to read those books which I had always ran away from as a child.
One of the books that really stood out for me those times was Gifted Hands written by the a popular neurosurgeon in the world - Benjamin Carson. In this book, Mr Ben used storytelling to educate, motivate and encourage readers especially myself in the most inspring ways.
About The Book That Set Me Apart
Gifted Hands was the second book that was read at the time I joined the community. The first was a book on temperaments which took me a longer time to finish unlike others. When our group leader suggested that we read Gifted Hands. He also gave a brief summary of the book content urging us to read in between the line. I was not exactly sure I could do that until I opened the book and began to read. I mean, fiction stories are great. They help build our mind and improve our imagination spirits creating suspense, twist and every other thing that makes it interesting. But now, I came across a non fiction book that gave me the same chill while expanding my vision of life.
Highlights From Gifted Hands
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In Ben Carson's Gifted Hands, he wrote about his life from childhood to his teenage years explaining how he moved from being the dull child school to becoming the best of the bests in his departments.
One of the exciting moment in the early part of that book was when he wrote about how his mother who took multiple jobs to see to he and his brother's needs had put away their TV with a rule to only watch TV after reading a number of books each week. Due to his mother's determination to see that they succeed, Benjamin began to visit the town library from time to time borrowing and reading up books untill one day, he got the spelling 'AGRICULTURE' correct in class which was his starting point of excellence.
Another amazing story explained how he fought with a boy and out of anger attempted to stab the boy with a knife which ended up hitting the metal head of the boy's belt stopping it from penetrating into his flesh. Ben Carson felt terrible about his inability to control his anger, he went into the toilet and locked himself up. While in the toilet, he saw a cockroach making countless efforts to climb up the wall. As he kept watching the cockroach climb and fall. He focused to see if the cockroach will quit trying but the more the tiny creature failed, the faster it stood up to try again until it eventually climbed over the wall. Ben was in uttermost surprise. He had learnt resilience from the little creature and he decided to do better.
Fast forward to his career life as a neurosurgeon, Ben Carson had a lot of experiences each of which contributed positively to who he his today. The things he did and the decisions he made all formed him.
How The Book Changed Me
After reading that book, I began to teach myself how to making decisions that will make me better and I sticked to them. One of the decisions I made was to step out of the imaginary world and take a closer view of the world I live in. The power to improve myself and become the person I wish to be lies within me.
Thanks for reading, Zeegirl 🌻