Why People Remain Uneducated

I want to start out today's message with some questions. See if you can answer them: Why don't more people get higher paying jobs? What don't more people get more enjoyment out of life? Why aren't more people financially independent? What don't more people do more with their lives than they do? Why do most people unnecessarily limit their lives to small fractions of what they could be?

Do you know the answer to these questions? The answer is the same for all the questions. It's because most people are, as a general rule uneducated. It seems that most people have a built in resistance to knowledge.

People don't seem to understand how important and profitable knowledge can be to them in every way; how it can enlarge their horizons, give them more zest, charm, and interest in their lives; and how it can improve their incomes and standards of living.

I recently saw a startling study by the American Booksellers Association. The study found that 80 percent of Americans read less than one book per year. The study also found that 58 percent of adult Americans never read a nonfiction book from cover to cover after they graduate from college.

Let's look at another very telling study recently conducted by the Gallup organization. It found that the top 9 percent of people with the highest incomes in America today read at least one nonfiction book per month.

These two studies should tell you all you need to know about the importance of continuing education. If you want to achieve success in life, then your education cannot stop when you graduate, it is a lifelong proposition. It is not an option, but the choice is yours.

Learning; reading the great thoughts of business leaders; keeping an open mind to all the wealth of information that is available today; actively pursuing knowledge as the answer to success in all areas of our lives, this is the mark of the person, who during his or her lifetime, has the best chance to reach the highest levels of success, achievement, and fulfillment.

Another reason why people remain uneducated today is because of their own personal beliefs and prejudices. The world is changing at rate never seen before in all of history and many people are afraid. The cling to old Industrial Age beliefs and refuse to change. The easiest way to spot a person with a small, closed mind is by his or her refusal to ever admit he or she was wrong about something.

I've never been able to understand this. What's wrong with learning new things and being wrong? The only thing that's wrong with it is to cling to it regardless of the evidence.

Unless you're smarter this week than you were last week, you've got a problem. If you learn only from experience, or from events in your daily life, with no other effort on your part for continuing education you will never achieve even a fraction of your true potential in life.

Before you go to sleep at night you should ask yourself two important questions. What did I learn today that I did not know before? How did I make this world a better place today? When you have an answer to both of these questions every night, you will not only sleep better but you will be on your way to a very successful and fulfilling life.