Why Must You Read?

To understand the gravity of this question, let’s start with another question- Why must you eat? Though the answer may be obvious, but let’s dig deeper. You eat to get energy and nutrients. Energy and nutrients, for what? For work! Your body works day and night. It doesn’t stop working, even when you are sleeping. Every cell in your body is engaged in one metabolic activity or the other. So, this compels them to need energy. But, let’s go further. Why must your body work? To keep you alive. If your body doesn’t work, you won’t be alive. Okay, let’s go a little bit further. Why must you be alive? To add value to life; to be a blessing to the earth. Can we go further? Why must you be a blessing to the earth? To prevent the earth from deteriorating. To keep and protect it (as the first man, Adam was instructed). And to make the earth a lovely place. 

You originally came from heaven, and so you have all the traits of heaven. But when you came here on earth, you were brainwashed to believe that you are just as normal as other living creatures. Your contribution should just be normal - be for yourself, your family and your close friends. No reason to look at the world as a whole and see what value you can add to humanity or better still, deploy your gifts and manifest the reason why you were created. Back to our original question, Why must you read? I used food because it’s the closest illustration and allegory I could use. You read because you want to acquire knowledge. Many read because they want to acquire certificates. But that’s not enough. Such people have ridiculed the value of reading, wasting their time and energy. No wonder there are many graduates who are not educated, because they only acquire information to pass exams and not to become part of them that would allow them to add value to the world. 

When you read, you acquire knowledge, for what? Knowledge is food to your mind, just like normal food to your body. It provides your mind energy and nutrients. But make sure it’s good and relevant knowledge, otherwise it could be a poison to your mind, just like the way you eat wrong food, it becomes problem in your body. So, good knowledge supposed to nourish and energize your mind. And this is for what? For work! You’ve got to engage your mind and spirit to work. Many people think we only do physical work. They don’t know we also do mental and spiritual works. And as a matter of fact, both mental and spiritual works are more important by far than the physical work. The more mental and spiritual works you do, the less physical work you do. 

Let’s focus on mental work. Mental work is fully engaging your mind for maximum productivity. What do you do with your mind? To think or process thoughts. You essentially use your mind to think. What is thinking? Thinking is the process by which you put different data together in your mind to solve a problem. It is your ability to ask intelligent questions and find the right solutions. It is your ability to bring different thoughts in your mind together to form a wholesome truth, a workable idea or plan that engenders value or proffers solutions. When you do this, you do mental work. 

There are many problems in our world today that are waiting for solutions. Problems cannot be exhausted. As one is solved, another one is created. So, they don’t stop coming. And that’s good for our world. Because that’s what makes us valuable and useful on earth. Problems are burgers that intelligent minds feed on to make them shine. If you want to solve problem, you’ve got to engage your mind in thinking. You’ve got to take your time, do research for knowledge and energize your mind so that it can be strong enough to work. 

Lazy minds can’t do tough work because they lack knowledge. Needless to say, they are never productive and would never have result in life. Leaders are readers because they always want to expand their minds and do better in what they do. When you solve problems through mental work, you add value to the world. When you add value to the world, you bring heaven on earth, and fulfill your purpose and glorify your father in heaven. 

Just before I close, here’s another important thing that reading does to your mind. Reading enhances your creative imagination. When you read, you create pictures of what you read in your mind. That gradually exercise your brain muscle and you become more and more proficient with connecting and extrapolating information and facts, coupled with creating pictures and ideas in your mind. As time goes on, you become smarter and more intelligent and that would enhance your problem-solving skills and ideas-creating ability.

Why Agriculture?

Why Agriculture? What is the idea behind it? Does everyone need to practice it? First, let’s define what agriculture is. Agriculture is the science or practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals for human or animal use. So, agriculture allows us to leverage on the law of nature. It allows us to multiply whatever we’ve farmed. 

Every one of us must cultivate the habit of practicing agriculture. Why? Because everyone of us eats. If you eat, you should know how what you eat is made. Agriculture gives you that opportunity. It was the first work that man started doing on earth after he was created. It was done by Cain and Abel. They practiced the two forms of agriculture- planting of crops and rearing of animals, respectively. 

Here are some benefits of practicing agriculture. First, there’s access to fresh, organic food. Second, there’s access to cheap food, because food is available and in abundance. Farming is not expensive, and it’s almost free because you leverage on the law of nature. You have the ability to control what you eat, when you eat and how you eat. That would also reduce the cost of buying food from the market, so the price would come down and more food would be available for few people who would want to buy from the market. 

Farming could be a good source of income if you have enough to sell. It would also allow you to stay healthy and live longer because you would bypass the process of transport and post-harvest storage that could have spoilt or contaminated the food. It would also encourage you to be more hard working and utilize the natural resources available such as sunlight and rainfall for your benefits. 

Next, farming offers you a good way to recycle all your food wastes and conserve your resources. For instance, food remnants and spoilt food can be taken by your poultry birds or other animals that you rear. Animals like cattle, sheep and goats can help you take care of the plants and weeds in your surroundings. Fish in your fish ponds can help you take care of fish gills and intestines that you remove from the fish that you grow or bought. Also, bio-fuel can be generated from woods and plants. Farming has a way of helping you to exercise and move your body. 

Plants and trees in your surroundings are good source of fresh air and healthy environment. They also prevent hazards caused by whirlwinds and tornadoes. There’s also less greenhouse effect and maintenance of good temperature within our earth. Juices, leaves, spices and herbs from plants and different parts of animals are a good source of medicine. You have access to health-promoting substances because of agriculture. There’s also less corruption and social menace in the society because more people would have access to food and feel less hungry and angry. That could also stabilize people’s emotions and foster more love among individuals. 

As the world population increases, we know one thing is certain- demand for food would also increase. And what would that mean? It would mean that we have to increase our food production. And that would be through farming. Right now, there’s increase in hunger level in some countries around the world and a lagging gap between what is produced and what is consumed. So, we must all rise to this challenge and fill-in the gap. Since we know food is what we will always need, we must find a way to continuously make it available without making it a burden for anyone. Everyone must be responsible for their own food. 

There are many things you are responsible for; not only your life, but also what keeps you alive -such as your health, what you eat, what you drink, what you breathe, what you know, where you belong, where you live, how you live and so on. The moment you take your responsibility from what the government should do for you, to what you should do for yourself, that’s when you begin to set yourself free from being disappointed, dependent and despondent. 

It’s not enough to find a white-collar job; you must also get a good farming to do. If you can’t do it where you live, you can find somewhere to do it. You can also hire people if distance is a barrier. And for those who don’t have land, they can lease it from individuals or government. Lands are available everywhere. And once your good intentions are known, you should be able to have access to good land to practice your agriculture. My regards

Are You Ready To Work?

Read this only if you are ready to work. Work is not a job, but you can make a job your work. Work is not what you do to keep yourself busy, but you can be busy with your work. Let me tell you what work does- Work adds value. Everything that you can see around you right now is a product of work. Let’s start from the clothes that you wear. Some people worked to produce those clothes. What about your gadgets, furniture, plastics, kitchen utensils, house, cars, and all of the things that you use? They are all products of work. If work wasn’t done, none of those things would have been produced. And those things add value to you. You use them, you work with them and they make your life better and easier. Imagine if there’s no work, then there won’t be anything that worths value. So, work allows us to add and create value. 

Whatever you do today that can add value to the environment- either people or things, can be termed as work. If you are good at talking and you can express yourself, turn it to work. If you can sing, dance, play instruments, write, cook, draw (do artistic works), care, act and all of the things that you can do, you can turn them to work by making them add value to humanity. And what do you get in return when you do these things? Value! You get value back in return when you add value. Most times, it comes in pecuniary form. 

If you go to the market to get any of those products I mentioned before, do you get them for free? No! You pay for them. Why? Because those things are value and you must give value (money) back in return. That's the law of exchange and that’s the whole concept about how to make money. You simply exchange value. So, when you turn whatever you do to work, it adds value. When it adds value, you make money. It can be immediate or later. But it’s certain that you’ll get your returns. It’s a law. When you give out something, you must take something back in return. Many times we don’t pay attention to it, but that’s the way life works. 

For you to work, you need two things; time and energy. Every work that you see came from those two things. Let’s talk about time. Time is what you have when you are alive. You do nothing without time, because everything works under the jurisdiction of time. This piece you read now, you use your time. So, time is what you have. How about energy? Energy is what gives you the ability to do work. Energy is what makes you appreciate time. Time creates the platform, energy creates the ability. The two must be present to do work. 

For instance, you may have time to do something, but so tired to do it. At that moment, you have time, but no energy. In another occasion, you may have so much energy to do something, but realize that you are short of time. So, to produce work, there must be investment of both time and energy. If you are ready to work, begin to invest your time and energy into things that you love and add value. If you want to change anything or have some desires or goals, there must be some works that have to be done. Find out those works and begin to implement them. You can start small. You can start now. And make sure you keep going. Greatness is yours.