You must strive to attain self-mastery and educate yourself so you can be of service to your desires and the world in a not so distant future.

One book will often not change your life so dramatically that nothing will ever be the same again. But if you play the margin game to perfection, where you push the envelope ever so slightly, the right books over a lifetime will determine if you will lead an average life in oblivion; or if you will live a truly wonderful life worth reading about.

Read with a vengeance, as if the author’s life is on trial, because nothing will have such an impact and be a better investment than owning, reading, and re-reading books that will change the way you think, write, and speak.

School is not designed for you and your aspirations. Therefore, you must always be on the lookout for new and exciting ways to learn skills that will aid you on your path toward achieving mastery.

Your problems are not by any means unique, which is a good thing. This means whatever hardships you are currently facing, you can get a glimpse of the future by going back in time and read how other people survived and thrived during similar difficulties.

A lot of people will go on and live their lives without reading something that challenges them intellectually. They read for pleasure or for the sake of reading as a means to relax, which is fine on a recreational level. The problem arises when they are oblivious to the fact that there are books that would dramatically alter their way of thinking.

The entire mass media is based on fear. If everyone were reading books that would force them to think for themselves, they would begin disarming the news headlines, the scare tactics, and other means of promoting fear in our society.

Get this — they don’t want you to think for yourself because if you do, you are practically unstoppable.

You must learn to distinguish what is there to entertain the minds of the oblivious, and what can be material for you to build an impressive library. Material that will change the way you think and have a tremendous impact on your life.