Since I discovered the world Dyslexia, it has become clear to me that this is one of the challenges I was having with writing and pronouncing some words.
I got to learn about this word first from Richard Branson while reading one of his book “Screw Business as usual.”
According to an online Dictionary, Dyslexia is a learning disorder that affects your ability to read, spell, write, and speak.
I Have always struggled with spelling and pronouncing words, it was a weakness I used to think was caused by my inconsistency with formal education.
My educational background has always been inconsistent, from attending three different primary schools to dropping out in my junior class to go learn a trade, and then coming back to sit for secondary school certificate exams as an external candidate, I never attended a class in senior secondary school.
I used to think that this inconsistency was the cause of my inability to spell and pronounce some certain words or write flawless sentences.
When I had about dyslexia it was clear to me that my challenges with dealing with words is not as a result of my inconsistent with formal education.
Before now, I have always wanted to be a writer, to inform and educate people through written words.
But whenever I think of my inability to deal with words that dreams will look impossible to achieve.
I used to believe that people who can produce thousands of words to make up books or posts like this, are specially bred or born with a special kind of ability.
I used to believe that to become a writer, you have to get everything right about the language you want to write with, things like grammar, structure, spelling and so on.
But I was wrong.
Before I turned 24, 2 books were what I can clearly remember ever reading, when I mean read, I mean reading at leisure, not the imposed reading of textbooks by teachers and lecturers in our formal education system.
Two books for the entire 24years I lived.
I used to hate reading, I feel our formal educational system unknowingly programmed us this way, they are always forcing us to read most of the stuff we don’t want to read.
After my last semester exam in my 2 years spell in college, I promise myself not to read anything again, even if it’s a signpost.
I was angry, I have to keep vigil to read all night so to write exams in the next day, this was my routine for over two weeks and after writing the last paper I got pissed off by anything called book.
Maybe it was my fault, maybe I didn’t have a good reading plan in school.
But I was angry with myself, with our educational system. I never wanted to set my eyes on anything called book again.
I’m glad I didn’t keep to that decision for long. If I have done so, I won’t have known what dyslexia is, I won’t have figured out the cause of my challenges.
If I had kept my decision to “never to read books again” I won’t have gotten the idea that you must not be perfect with English to become a writer and I won’t have written the books and blog posts that I have written which are capable of impacting people in a little way.
Reading books saved my life, when I mean reading, I don’t mean subjective kind of reading, the kind of one you are forced to read even when you don’t care about what the theorist from 18 or 19 century has to say.
I mean reading to figure out things, intentional kind of reading, to widen your perceptive about life, to seek and find truths that can possibly set you free.
I mean reading because you are curious not because you want to pass a test.
One of the books that changed my perceptive about becoming a writer was “Screw Bussines As Usual” by Richard Branson.
The book was about entrepreneurship, more of how businesses can doing things differently to maximise impact and success in the world.
But that wasn’t all I took from the book, the transformation for me happen when I discovered that the writer also struggles to deal with words, he is dyslexic just like me.
What inspired me most was that despite his inability, Richard Branson has written many books and beyond this, he is a business guru, despite being dyslexic he has foundered many businesses including Virgin Airlines and over 400 hundred businesses.
Now, this might seem like a regular kind of story, but reading that book was a navigating point in my life, especially as a writer, it was an insight and validation to clear all the myths that were limiting me for a very long time on becoming a writer.
Here are 5 of those myths in reverse
1. You don’t need to be perfect to start anything.
Perfectionism is an enemy to progress, growth and creativity.
Life is not design for us to already figure things out, life is designed for us as human to be able to learn, improve and explore, most people in life don’t even start this process.
It all starts with learning, a learner is an imperfect on the journey to becoming good and close to perfection, if you carefully examin life you understand that this is how the universe structured life.
You must not be perfect to start anythung but you can become perfect if you start.
2. Reading is to the mind as what exercise is to the body
In the scope of health and fitness, if you want to have fat muscles what you will do is hit the gym, lift some irons and do some intense physical movement, exercise.
The way exercise works on your muscles this is the way books work on your mind, it develops it, you will have wider perceptive about life which helps identify opportunities and help you build a better understanding about the world around you.
Most of the world’s problems are hiding inside the page of books, you just have to find them where they are hiding.
3. As a human, you have unlimited potentials
The potentials in you as a human is not something that is already formed that might have limitation in terms of expansion or growth.
The human potentials are formless, and we have the ability to form anything out of it.
As a human your core being is programmed to limitless, you have the ability to do unimaginable things, it’s this same ability that has enabled me to write books and post like this, even though I struggle dealing with words, dyslexia.
4. If you want to have what you don’t have you must first seek.
This is a biblical principle, it’s applicable to physically as much as it’s applicable spiritually.
Whatever you want from life you need to seek it, you need to prove that you want that thing, being a nice person is not enough.
You need to declare your intention before God can rearrange the universal to attend to your needs
While you are seeking, you may as well knock and ask, they both work together to help you achieve improvement, growth and success in life.
And be patient, you can’t plant a corn today and harvest it tomorrow, we understand this in natural world, but act otherwise in moral and spritual world.
5. Mistakes and Failure are nice guys
Mistakes and failure are some of the things society has made us believe is bad and should be avoided, that might be ok as a child, but as an adult facing life, mistakes and failure is your compass to navigating through life.
Mistakes and failure is the path to discovering your light, just like Thomas Edison.
I have learnt a lot about life but these 5 lessons where solidify as a result of dealing with dyslexia.
I will love to hear from you, what challenges are limiting your dreams? What challenges have you overcome lately that once stood as an obstacle to your dreams? share in comments below.
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