The Ignored Wisdom

It was 1989, and I was a teenager.

My father had passed away about a year earlier, and I had left my first job after working for a few months in commission-based sales.

One of my elder sisters was working at the time, and she used to give me Rs.100 as pocket money.

I always felt ashamed taking money from my sister, but I thought I had no choice. I was wrong. I did have a choice.

Even though Rs.100 was a meager amount and never enough for a teenager, even back then, I had learned some creative ways to live with it.

I guess when you don’t have many choices, your creativity kicks in and helps you find solutions that you might never have discovered otherwise. Perhaps that is why many creative people come from humble beginnings.

Anyway, one day I was walking through Saddar, the central city area, when I noticed a book vendor sitting on the footpath with a small collection of books spread out before him.

One book immediately caught my attention.

It had a yellow and black cover and was about 250 pages long in paperback format.

The title was How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

I fell in love with it.

It was love at first sight.

The book looked slightly worn, probably from spending too much time under the sun on the footpath.

I asked the price.

It was Rs.30. (Less than $1 at that time)

One thing I have noticed over the years is that many people mistakenly believe that investing time and money in learning is a bad idea.

They make excuses about not having enough time or money to learn.

What they often fail to realize is this:

It’s not that you cannot learn because you do not have money.

Often, you do not have money because you did not learn.

You cannot harvest fruit from a garden unless you first plant seeds.

Anyway, Rs.30 was a huge amount for me. It represented 30% of my entire monthly pocket money, and I had already spent most of what I had.

I wondered how I would survive if I invested in such an “expensive” book.

But when you fall in love with learning, you stop worrying about the consequences.

My love for the book took over, and I bought it.

Guess what?

I worried about how I would live.

I lived very happily.

And I remained completely satisfied with my decision to invest in my own learning.

That was the beginning.

Over the last three decades, I have invested millions of rupees in my personal development.

I have spent thousands of hours learning and practicing NLP and Hypnosis, while continually honing my skills as a trainer and life coach.

Alhamdulillah, the benefits have been far greater than I could ever have imagined.

I am not sharing this story to impress you.

I am sharing it to impress upon you the wisdom contained in the words:

“Seek knowledge from cradle to grave.”

If you were my own brother or sister, I would tell you this:

Learning is an addiction—and a very useful one. That is the ignored wisdom.

Develop it.

Seek the company of knowledgeable people who live what they teach, and it will change your life.

I hope you got the message.