Developing a Prosperous Mind

 

When Malcolm X was in jail, he would explore the prison library. By reading everything he could land his hands on, he discovered the power of books. In his book, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X", he wrote about his nightly reading habits:

"At one-hour intervals, the night guards paced past every room. Each time I heard the approaching footsteps, I jumped into bed and feigned sleep. And as soon as the guard passed, I got back out of bed onto the floor area of that light-glow, where I would read for another fifty-eight minutes---until the guard approached again. That went on until three or four every morning."

Malcolm shows us the power of having a prosperous mindset. No matter how isolated you are, your mind will never be alone. It will never be bored or lonely.

Look at it this way; a mindful full of knowledge is rich, while a mind that lacks knowledge is poor. Once you have a rich mind, it just gets richer from there.

Looking back to Malcolm, we don't need to sleep 4 hours to develop a rich mind. I found out that you only need to spend one hour daily to improve it.

In the book, the University of Berkshire Hathaway, Charlie Munger (an American billionaire investor) got an idea to add a mental interest. He would keep an hour of the day to improving his mind and the rest of the day the world would have to buy. It sounded selfish at first, but it worked. He also said if you become very reliable that way, you become unstoppable and won't fail at anything.

In 2019, my dog passed away, I was fired from an internship, my relationship ended, and COVID had just begun. I decided to focus on improving my mind. I spent every day reading books, listening to podcasts, taking courses, talking to people, and keeping myself always busy. I made it a full-time job. This went until I improved overall as a person.

Sure you could do activities to enrich your mind such as journaling, listening to podcasts, or taking courses. But that will only take you so far. Do you ever feel bored? Are you constantly curious about what the other person is doing with their life? If you answered no to these two, you have what I call a prosperous mind. We all have moments of weakness but even the best of us have them.

The Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote about this in one of his letters. He said the main point of Stoicism is not to be perfect; the intention is what matters.

When you enrich your mind, you never become bored or lonely. And that's what will help you stay active for a long time.