Campus reflections

What is your favourite book?

BOOKS are more important in our lifestyle. The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

Reading books can build the understanding and awareness of students in different situations.

Books make the students self-effacing and compassionate and also boost the confidence of students. Reading books can enhance the imagination and creativity of student’s and increases positive thinking

This week we asked what is your favourite book that you have read and what lessons can be drawn from that book?

How did you apply the knowledge from the book?

The book “Rich dad Poor dad”, written in 1997 by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter is my all time favorite because of how it educates on financial literacy.

The main lessons from the book states, that you should not work to earn money but rather work to learn, it also points out the idea that money is not real but a state of mind.

Therefore our mind becomes the greatest income generating asset we have, depending on how we choose to use it and focus our energy.

The other lesson I picked and found useful was knowing the difference between a liability and an asset.

Any spending that does not bring back money to your pocket is a liability including the luxuries.

These lessons have helped me to know that in this New Dispensation its wiser to start on new business aside from your profession to earn money and generate more wealth for yourself.

Even on deciding on what to buy next after getting a tangible amount of money, I now know that its wiser to buy assets first then luxuries last.

To any young entrepreneur out there my advice is if you make money do not rush to buy your dream car but rather invest that money back into something and let it gain interests until you can comfortably afford whatever you need in this life.

The book I read is “The Success Pyramid” by Tendai Dara.

Success is not a uniform destination but a personal discovery of a higher purpose for life.

The book speaks about the foundation of building a successful life and highlights the key steps that one should take if they want to succeed in any area of their life.

It taught me that success is not success if its not anchored in God because he created us for purpose and on purpose so whatever we do must and should always be in line with this high purpose.

There is a quote which says “Your level of success is dependent of your level of revelation about your purpose’. and this speaks to how purpose should be the greatest desire for each living men.

I also learnt that hard work can never be substituted by anything.

The book has empowered with nuggets for purpose discovery which l use on a daily basis.

It also opened my mind to whole world of possibilities.

It strengthened my faith in God because it makes so many references to the holy book, the Bible and this nourished my soul in a way l never expected.

Tanatswa Elton Mutigwa, (24) Chinhoyi University of Technology Bachelor of Science Honors Degree in Accountancy

On an extensive wall of endless literary works, the most difficult, nay impossible task would be to single out one’s favourite work. Yet, if I were to do so inspite of the difficulty of it, Franz Fanon’s “Black Skin, white masks” would quickly hop to the surface of my mind.

In a lecturer in 1986 titled An African writer’s Exprience of European literature, Dambudzo marechera exclaimed, “how can Africa write as if that Black Frenchman, Franz Fanon, never existed — the Fanon of Black Skin white masks” This phrase summarises how the book has revolutionised my view of Africa, its people, and need for the decolonization of the mind, to kickstart meaningful development. The relevance of the book and the questions it extends remains undeniable, more so now in the age of the movement of the “Black Lives Matter!”

The book made me aware of the existence of mental slavery in former colonies, armed with this knowledge I wrote articles aimed at raising awareness to the need to free our minds as a way to tackle inferiority complex and to achieve complete black empowerment and development.

My favourite book would have to be “Half of a Yellow Sun” by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, a book which follows the story of a middle class family during the Biafran war.

The book highlights strongly the fragility of ethnicity how it could easily erupt into a civil war.

This fragility is a very strong tool for Neo Colonialism which i learned is very much alive, silently fueling wars in the regions that were once colonies to somehow justify colonisation. It also corrected me from the notion that women and children are the only ones affected by economic deterioration, the book portrays how the political atmosphere affects both men and women without making it a suffering competition, arguing that where there is strife people suffer. the way i understand the world shifted, there are no events that occur that are isolated from history , challenges and triumphs are all connected to how things started and progressed.

To be able to fully understand the events at the present time it is prudent to consult the past.

Paulington Chimungu, (23) National University of Science and Technology Business Management and Entrepreneurship