Chapter 3/2

It Is Not too Late

As I said, I was almost forty-years-old. You are not too old; it is not too late. You can learn to think. And again, it is easy.

I have heard that if you can walk you can dance, if you can talk you can sing, and if you can write you can draw. To my amazement I learned, in middle-age, that all this is true. I am not a good dancer, but I can dance; only a fair singer, but I sing; and I’ve learned to draw quite well. I had never thought I could. I have also learned that if you think at all, you can become a good thinker–probably not an Einstein, but a respected thinker nonetheless.

What You Will Gain from this Book

Skill in developing, correcting, and expanding your own ideas and insights.
Skill at critiquing what you hear and read from others.
Skill in functioning as an effective team or committee member.
You will become a more convincing and respected speaker and writer.
You will begin to persuade your critics to seriously consider your position.
You will become more logical in all you think and do.
You will easily spot the illogical and inconsistent in all you hear and read.
You will learn to see more clearly where others are coming from.
You will easily distinguish mere probabilities from inescapable necessities.
Your use of language will become increasingly clearer.
You will come to think before you speak.
You will come to know yourself better.
You will come to see more clearly where your thought is coming from.
You will come to see more clearly where your own thinking is headed.
You will learn much about the DIALECTIC of life itself.
You will develop a greater appreciation of other people.
You will become a wiser and more considerate person.
Your life will become richer, more productive, and more wonder-filled.

YOU WILL BECOME:

A person whose ideas must be reckoned with.
A person of greater integrity.
A person who is rarely blind-sided.
A better conversationalist
A better learner.
More honest, modest, and moderate.
More confident
More respected and more respectful.
More patient and appreciative.
More open to change
More courteous, considerate, and sympathetic.
More patient and less arrogant.
More aware, and less apt to go off half-cocked.

We think in order to clarify, comprehend, and create--ultimately in order to decide, to appreciate, and thus, to act and become. If we don’t think, we live muddled, uncomprehending lives, stuck in the habitual and overwhelmed by a complicated world. We make wrong decisions, appreciate little, do things we regret and that harm us, and never become persons of character and wisdom.