Tips to Make Your Reading Affective

The master tool for personal development may be inside one of the books that are sitting there on your shelf at your local bookstore, or the worldwide library known as the Internet. Reading challenging books could demand a considerable effort, but that effort could pay tremendously in the future. If you didn’t start a reading plan for this upcoming summer, consider these reasons on why you should start planning.

To do this, you must first understand your thoughts and ideas. Whether you’re aware of this or not, your thoughts and beliefs might be shaped based on social norms that have evolved since your early childhood. The independent ideas you have might be someone else’s ideas created by a thinker from the previous generations. Robert M. Hutchins once said, “These books are the means of understanding our society and ourselves. They contain the great ideas that dominate us without our knowing it. There is no comparable repository in our tradition.”

Let me ask you this, what do you think of love, happiness, democracy, or freedom? Okay, now that you’ve answered. Do you think these answers and ideas are your own? Are you the only one who thinks that way about love or happiness? What about democracy and freedom? Maybe there is an outside force such as cultural and social factors influencing these ideas. By reading books over time, you can clearly see how these ideas have developed overtime, and how they affect you and made you the person you’re now. Whether you’re going to accept the way you’re thinking today or not; what matters is that you will become aware that it’s a choice and you have to make the final decision yourself.

Vera Nazarian once said, “Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light”. Another excellent way to improve your reading is to get a genius twist. They say, “you’re who you associate with”, I believe it’s the same when it comes to books. There are some great books written by great thinkers and historians, and by reading them you expand your thoughts and take them to a higher level.

Selective reading is effective reading. To quote HarukiMurakami, “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” When I was in high school, I noticed that people only read popular modern-day books, forgetting about the classic books and the great thinkers of history. As Descartes said, “The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of the past centuries.” No matter where you come from, or what your background is, reading classics can give you a full understanding of the different ideas in the world. It’s possible to bring your intellectual level to the same level as those great thinkers by pursuing a self-study plan of their famous work. Remember, they weren’t born ready.

One thing I ask is that you don’t focus on one specialty. Focusing on subjects related to your major is a smart move, but it will only help you earn a living. Shutting yourself from other specialties will inhibit your excelling and improving. To be a well-rounded person, one needs a good understanding of the world and the different fields of study. Be a jack-of-all-trades. Don’t limit yourself at all. Whether you’re studying information technology, computer science, medicine, or business, gaining vast knowledge in a lot of subjects covered in books will enhance your chances to excel in the future.

You must learn from past experiences. As George Santana said,” Those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. Winston Churchill said it best,” Study history, study history. In History lie all the secrets of statecraft.” Reading about past discoveries is a guide for us to avoid the mistakes that were made by those before us and learn from them. Everyone has to create his or her own path in this life, so why not benefit from past experiences? Not reading about these past experiences is like getting lost in the city without using a map.

Although they weren’t written for specialists, stepping out of your reading-comfort zone by reading challenging books will develop your comprehension and will enable you to read all kinds of books; as a result, no need to run away from academic or historical articles.

In the end I would like to say that reading could help you to develop your personality and be a better person. Not only will they help you to develop your personality, but alsothey will give you answers to questions. You’ll notice that a lot of books are talking about roughly the same theme,and they won’t give you one answer, but each book has it’s own view on that particular theme, so this will help you to grasp all the different views. You have the final decision to pick which idea suits you the most.

Most don’t bother themselves knowing how ideas developed and made the world the way it is today but asSamuel Butler said,” A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.” Reading books can bring that desire to strive for knowledge and the curiosity to learn more about the world. What’s the use of all the discoveries and the experiments that happened in the past if we didn’t learn them?

By: Faris Alothimin

You can follow the writer on twitter: @AlothiminFaris

Women Are Not Decoration

Sexists are those who base their beliefs on traditional and/or cultural stereotypes on gender roles. These gender roles are implemented in our society; it’s somehow something we’ve been raised to believe without questioning. Many of these stereotypes aren’t only descriptive, but are simply beliefs on how women and men should act and behave; anything contradictory to that is against the nature of that particular gender. For example, a man who’s thin is criticized because men shouldn’t be skinny whereas a person who’s overweight is criticized for being unhealthy only, that’s one stereotype for men. On the other hand, the ladies’ stereotype is that they are always dependent on their family, and they can’t do anything productive on their own. Discriminations such as these can affect both men and women; however, women have been receiving the tougher side of the spectrum for years, which has led to everything becoming dominated by men.

When a boy is born, that family receives congratulations from everyone. A boy gives security, and someone who will take the family’s name for one more generation and will be able to support the family. When a girl is born, the reaction is quite different; a girl here is just another expense to the family. You always hear fathers complain on how much daughters demand extra care and lots of needs ranging from make up to dresses etc. Some families believe that a girl’s place should be in home, not in the world of men. When a family treats a boy like their savior, a girl has nothing to do but to feel down; when everything around her indicates that she is less worthy, she will sense the superiority of the boy over her, and the extra attention he gets. Poverty and the strong biases against women will prevent women in developing countries from living up to their full potential no matter how rich the country.

Every time a Saudi woman appears on television, she is always judged according to the clothes she wears, the way she wears her hijab, and her looks thereby belittling what she stands for intellectually as she explains one of her achievements. We always focus on the minor details that have nothing to do with why that smart woman is being hosted. Sexism has the power to affect every woman’s opportunity to accomplish her full potential. Also, women are always treated as if they were objects. In my opinion, most likely divorces are outcomes of this gender discrimination, which is due to men treating their spouses as objects and using violence as a way to control them. Someone tell our men that it’s a marriage contract and not a property contract! Moreover, women are being taken also as sexual being; that they’re here to fulfill their husbands’ animalistic sexual needs, and also as baby vending machines.

According to the United Nations, there is no society where women are not being discriminated against, or have equal opportunities as men. Even in the West where women’s rights have improved the lives of women, they still suffer from this discrimination and the unfairness of something called ‘glass ceiling’, which is a term that refers to women in the working field in which they can’t get promoted beyond a certain level. Our social dictionary has defined women as primarily sexual beings who are unproductive, and dependent by connecting their dreams and achievements to their dependence on men. 

When this will end? Because the last time I checked a lot of women are being denied the opportunity to continue their studies and achieve their dreams because their families believe that they should stay at home and comfort their men’s needs. 

Note: "Men of Quality respect women’s equality" I believe that women are human, as well as men. The only differences are physical, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they can’t have their rights; both sexes in humanity are equal.

By: Faris Alothimin
You can follow the writer on twitter: @AlothiminFaris

Don’t Give Money to Beggars

 

   In the past, I used to give money to street beggars, because I know that it means more to them than it means to me. Also, I believe that god will give me more in the future. Time passed, I have changed my mind, and now I don’t give money to street beggars. I believe that by giving money to street beggars we are  encouraging people to beg and not to work. Let me explain why people should not give money to street beggars.

   First of all, at the time that we want to decrease unemployment numbers, we are increasing them. Also, there is no guarantee that street beggars are going to use the money in a productive way to improve their lifestyle.  Most of them are spending the money that they receive in bad ways, such as alcohol, weed, drugs, etc. This means that they wasted all the money that they received and they have to start begging again.

   Second, when you give money to a street beggar you are giving your money to a person who already received a lot of money from other people. The money they receive depends on the way they look and their location. Last summer, I went to Saudi Arabia to visit my family. Every time I went to the mosque I saw street beggars next to the mosque. One of the times, I decided to stand outside the mosque and see how much money those street beggars made. I pretended that everybody is giving a street beggar (5 Saudi riyals = 1.5 American dollars), because I saw some people gave him (10 riyals = 3 dollars) and some others were giving him (1 riyal = 30 cents). I counted the number of the givers in 5 minutes, and the number was 22 people. It means that the street beggar made almost (110 riyals = 30 dollars) in 5 minutes, which is 360 dollars in an hour. This is very bad, because, as I mentioned before, it encourages beggars not to work.

   Last but not least, it’s really easy to dress like a poor person and start begging on the street. Last week, I watched a famous Saudi YouTube show. In the show, the presenter acted and dressed like a poor person in different ways. He acted as a beggar next to the mosque and he made more money than when he acted as a beggar in traffic signals in public streets. According to the show, the reason behind making more money by begging next to the mosque is that in traffic signals cars will stop for the average of 60 seconds and some drivers will ignore the beggars, but in mosques people will easily drop some bills into a beggar’s money box. The good thing is that the presenter donated all the money he received to a charity.

   If you are wealthy and you want to help others by giving them some of your money, you should not give to those who are geographically close to you. You should give to those who are the worst off, who can be helped the most with each dollar that you give, and who are the least responsible for the situation that they’re in. Also, you can donate to orphanage or infirmary charities in your country. The point is that you have to give your money to people that you are fully sure that they need your money. Again, in my opinion, by giving money to street beggars we are telling them that they don’t have to work.

By: Majid Attar
You can follow the writer on twitter: @Majidola