A Thousand Leagues: Memoir on Personal Development

A journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step

CONFUCIUS

Philosopher

have climbed many mountains. This book is about how I climbed the many mountains in my life. I have climbed a thousand mountains in my life using the knowledge and tools I learnt in books. I have written a lot on principles of success. I adopted these principles from international motivational and personal development gurus like Jack Canfield, Napoleon Hill, Robert Kiyosaki, Brian Tracy, Anthony Robbins, and others. I decided to collate them as an anthology of what I have written over the years. Hence, this book will contain pieces I have written over many years going back to 2010 or thereabouts. Otherwise, most of the chapters were published every week as newspaper articles. I acknowledge The National newspaper for publishing most of these articles in the column known as “Steven’s Window” within “The Weekend”. I have since then taken up the challenge to continue writing, but through an online platform as a blogger: http: www.stevenewinduo.blogspot.com where most of my latest writings are published. Even though as a blogger I have limited readership I also link the blog to my Facebook page for readers using this platform to read what I write.

At best, I was inspired recently to have this book published after I had reviewed Papa Sam’s Be Inspired, a memoir on his experiences on promoting the notion of personal viability and successful principles. It is a book about helping people climb mountains in their lives as well. These mountains appear as poverty, personal denial, financial illiteracy, health problems, personal challenges in business, money, and education. Papa Sam has helped many people find their footing in climbing the mountains in their lives.

Perhaps the strongest motivation to me is the realization that writing a book is also a sound platform to transform my visions and plans to achieve greatness. I love writing because it is a gift that I have been blessed with. Through my writing I can help others to climb their own mountains. Publishing a book on the principles of success can help others on their way up, if not it can help them to stand up from where they have fallen. I also think the book can help them to face their own fears, insecurities, and lack of faith in their ability to succeed. I believe this book will help others who have not read widely to experience what I have experienced in my life.

“There are many paths up the mountain, but the view from the top is still the same,” is the 1970s song that has found a permanent place in my mind. I have lived this phrase over and over all these years. Come to think of it I have also climbed many mountains, perhaps a thousand in my life, knowing the view from the top is the same. A thousand mountains with their slopes, gradients, plateaus, and challenges, seem to capture real life challenges in our lives. I have climbed these mountains without knowing much about them, but getting to the top requires a lot of mental preparedness, plans, and even discipline. In all, tackling the challenges, to climb these mountains I had to read books on how to climb mountains like a pro, or like someone who has already climbed a mountain. It is the best advice and knowledge one needs to help with the climb to the top.

The first PNG Writer: Hosea Linge

With so much going on around us we tend to forget about important foundations of our history. I could not get out of my mind the much neglected discussion on the first Papua New Guinean writer. Every now and then we need to acknowledge the important parts of our history as we move forward. I would like to acknowledge the first Papua New Guinean to write a book in the 1930s. A New Irelander by name of Ligeremaluoga wrote and published his book under the title The Erstwhile Savage: An Account of the Life of Ligeremaluoga in 1932. Ligeremaluoga is from Kono village in New Ireland Province. Ligeremaluoga’s book is by all accounts the first written account by a South Pacific Islander. Most of what we know as Pacific writing is dated to the 1960s and 1970s. Last month I presented a paper at the University of Hawaii to discuss another early Papua New Guinean writer by name of Ahuia Ova of Hanuabada, who published his memoirs in 1939, six years after Ligeremaluoga’s autobiography. ...

Well Done! Nora

Melanesian writers: Regis Tove Stella (PNG), Nora Vagi Brash (PNG), Sam Alasia (Solomon Islands), USP Fiji campus, 1999. One of the outstanding playwright and poet to emerge in Papua New Guinea is Nora Vagi Brash. She remains the foremost and the only Papua New Guinean female playwright. Nora was involved with acting in amateur theatre, radio plays, and street theatre in early 1970s. Her exposure to the world of theatre in England inspired her to write her own plays on her return to Papua New Guinea. The National Arts School employed Nora as an assistant lecturer in puppetry, dance, and drama. She then moved on to become one of the two artistic directors with the National Theatre Company. Nora wrote her own scripts for the puppets using tradional stories of Papua New Guinea. The National Theatre Company toured local villages and performed in the streets. They went to the Pacific Arts Festival in Rotorua and Wellington, New Zealand. They also danced in Point Venus ...

Milky Pine Power

Young Milky Pine ( Alstonia scholaris ) The importance of plant names in the local language is an example of a complex structure of meaning. Different plants are used for specific purposes in our traditional societies. The same plant known by a common name can have sacred names to different people. Most often these sacred names are linked to myths, rituals, and spiritual powers. Many people know the general names for plants, but different species have a different name or an additional word to indicate colour, wild plants, domesticated plants, or cultivated. Where plants have medicinal and ritual values they may have sacred names known only to those who claim ownership of the plant and its powers. The tanget ( Cordyline fruticosa ), for example, is generally known in Nagum Boiken language as hawa . This name includes the cultivated ones, which are red in color and appears in long and short round leaves. The green wild ones are...

Fern Ridge (Safla Rama) Digest

Search This Blog