An Evaluation of the Value of the Book in My Personal Life, Essay Example

The tale of Ben Carson’s historical bibliography in his famous Think Big novel is still one of my favourite inspirational artwork. Based on the author’s personal insights to life, the book outlines the events of the writer’s past life and how amidst family challenges and social problems. The author used education as a platform for gaining professional success and social influence. The author develops the foundation of his story through reflecting on his past experiences in a racial society and his life as a son to a single parent that did more than two jobs a day to sustain her family (Biography.com). Recalling the experience of the writer and the events in his book, I feel that the experiences and the events are significant to me and my goals in life. While reflecting on the writer’s experiences in the book, I will seek to establish the essence of the experiences in evaluating and developing my personal goals in life.

Reading Think Big helped me change my perspective on a broad range of issues, including reading culture (Carson & Murphey, 67). I only read novels and bibliographies when I was required to make class reference. As a student, I preferred reading academic materials to reading novels and stories written about individuals’ lives. Still, I preferred playing video games and watching television every time I was free. However, this changed when on one occasion, my English teacher suggested that we read Carson’s Think Big and do a review of the same. I was captivated by the writer’s path towards achieving academic excellence.  From the book, I learned that the ability of the author to change his reading culture formed a basis of his success. Since then, I consider my reading culture to have changed, and I have learned a lot of issues from reading a broad range of topics (Clarrissimeaux). As a result, my perspective on socio-political issues has changed with time.

Reading the book helped me develop a contrary stance on the value of mentorship. Before reading the book, I never thought that mentors were significant in influencing an individual’s attitude. I had developed a thought that the notion of the value of mentors was something whose essence was shredded on an unproven basis. I developed a contrary idea through learning of the value of mentors in changing an individual’s life. Based on the book, Carson outlines the profile of his mentors from his early years in school to his practice as a neurosurgeon. He sees his mother as above all mentor owing to the central role she played in his life (Carson & Murphey, 89).

Think Big taught me the value of patient and maintaining calmness when faced with an annoying situation (Carson & Murphey, 56). Reflecting back on my early student years, I feel that I am different now from the way I was back then. I attribute this to reading Carson’s life’s journey. While I would overreact when abused and bullied at school, I learned the value of perseverance from Carson’s narrative.

Never had I been influenced by an inspirational story written by a single author like Carson. Think Big is one of my favourite stories and I will not hesitate reading the book again owing to the pieces of inspirational words that have the capability of influencing any one’s perspective in life. The book, in addition to helping me change my reading culture, has been one of my influences towards changing my notion of the value of mentors.

Works Cited

Biography.com, ‘Ben Carson Bibliography.’ N.p., 2015. Web. 13 June 2015.

Carson, Ben, and Cecil B. Murphey. Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 2006. Print.

Clarrissimeaux, Anne. ‘Never Give Up.’ SUCCESS. N.p., 2015. Web. 13 June 2015.