Get yourself a dictionary, today. (the road to Genius, without really trying…)
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
Why? Why am I insisting that you get yourself a dictionary today?
I’ll tell you why. (you do want to be a genius don’t you?)
1. You have an idea
2. You want to get that idea across to someone else.
3. In order to do that you have to either use signs, draw a picture or diagram, mime or play-act out what you mean OR you have to talk or write.
4. Talking is the most common way of communicating today and IT INVOLVES USING WORDS. I want you to get that. It involves using WORDS.
5. WORDS can have more than just one meaning and often have several.
6. In order to communicate EFFECTIVELY, you need to know what words mean, and you need to know ALL the meanings of the words being used to communicate TO you, or you will get the wrong idea. That’s bad, can lead to upsets, and might just kill you.
7. The literacy level of our current society is pitiful. Litteraly I feel sick in my stomach when I see the unbelievably low literacy level of the children in our schools today. It MAKES ME SICK!
8. YOU are reading this right now, and that is just great. If you got this far I want to congratulate you because you are probably only about 5 percent of the population. So you’re smart enough to understand what I am going to tell you next.
9. Go get yourself a DICTIONARY! I mean get the best one that you can buy. That way you can compare definitions and cross-reference that with the WIKIPEDIA.
10. Next, you have to learn how to use it. Google “How to use a dictionary course” and go do it. It doesn’t matter if your 8 years old or 80 and “highly educated”. Go do that course.
11. Then use the knowledge that you have to make sure that you understand ALL the words that you come across, every day, for the rest of your life.
12. I’ll give you the steps real quick here.
- find the word that you don’t understand in the dictionary.
- look quickly over the definitions if there are more than one for the one that fits in the context of what you read.
- read THAT definition
- Use the word in that way in several sentences that you make up. Make enough sentences until you feel really comfortable with the word used in THAT way.
- Next, read each of the other definitons of the word and make sentences until each definiton is clear in your mind, individually.
- Then read the derivation (ETYMOLOGY) of the word.
- then the special uses or any other information about that particular word.
13. IF you do that, you will NEVER have to redifne that particular word EVER again. It will become YOUR word to use forever BECAUSE you will FULLY understand it.
Flourish and prosper!
So this process will just accidentally make you a freaking GENIUS, because you will gain the ability to learn ANYTHING, understand ANYTHING and be able to clearly and precisely get your ideas across to OTHERS. And that is worth all the money in the world.
Believe me there is a bunch more to it than that but just what I have given you here will get you on the road to Genius from right where you are.
You might ask, “Why are you bothering to tell me this? What is the point?” I’ll tell you why. I’m building a better planet and the next better person on it is going to be YOU if you follow my advice.
Some of you might say “What is in it for you?, Why do you care?” and I’ll say “Why DON’T you care?” That’s what’s odd. Not why I care. That’s easy to grasp.
So, go do these things and come back and read the next piece of advice on your next visit.
Take care, and do well!
Jeremusic