Self Improvement – the catalyst for a better life

Self improvement cannot just be a matter of academic exercise by the erudite scholars in the ivory tower but an inevitable phenomenon for anyone no matter the social or economic station of life and whichever way one looks at it this is an inevitable catalyst for crossing the threshold of poverty to the rosy side of affluent life, the more reason why life itself is said to be neither a bed of roses nor a bush of thorns.

It is a common altruism that since the law of karma plays a very predominant role in our common existence or to say that rather simply according to that law that has been with humanity since the very first time that man first found himself on this side of the great terrestrial divide, you can only reap what you sow. This is the reason why it has never happened anywhere that someone sows orange and reaps banana or grows apple and harvest plantain.

There is no gainsaying the fact that for us to lead a very good and rewarding life, we should allow self improvement to be our primary motive and ensure that the type of seed we sow is the one that will germinate to better our lot and that of the people both in our immediate and remote community. Whatever may be the circumstance, our fate lies in our hands so there is no sense in not engaging in an effort that will not gear our ways of life toward self improvement either through the books we read, the social group of people to which we belong and our common daily practices.

While it is true that there are no specific applicable rules to follow for our self improvement practices so each individual has his or her own peculiar cases of what to do to make the life better for him or her than what it is now. Many of us are quite familiar with the story of a wealthy man in the Bible who shared eight talents (the money or the legal tender of the Jews in the ancient history) among his three servants and asked them to trade with them for the purpose of making profit for him. To the first servant he gave five, the second, two and the last he doled out just one.

The story went further to let us know that while the first two traded with the money given to them by their master as expected and made double gain, the third person just buried his on the ground. On his arrival from the journey the master asked them for the report of their stewardship, the first two gladly told him what they did with the talents while the third one only offered some flimsy excuses and the hardness of the master.

In the final analysis, the master just took the talent from the mentally lazy man and gave it to the first person that made most profit from the money he got from the master. By this simple parable, one realizes that it is not good to bury the talent on the ground since one day an account would be made of it to our creator. In the follow-up to this piece, the author is going to talk about some inevitable steps toward self improvement for a better rewarding future.