Written by Yoo Yeong-man
Genre: Self-Development Book
Published in December 2009
261 pages
If someone asks a child, “What do you want to be?,” the child might talk about his or her dream. However, if the same question is given to a university student, most of them may hesitate to answer. These days, university students are pretty busy preparing to seek for their jobs, and building themselves through exams and other kinds of work. Here, the Gazette selected a book which can motivate them. The book's title is Youth Management.
The author, Yoo Yeong-man, graduated from a technical high school and suffered from a lot of hardships until he became a professor. However, he overcame the hardships and finally realized his dream. Here follows 7 steps introduced in this book.
The first step is to find directions toward your dreams. In this step, he says wandering is not time-wasting, but time for finding directions for dreams.
The second step is to look at the world with open eyes. In this part, he advises mental attitudes - ‘Depth decides the height’ - meaning the more we mature, the more we grow. If the first step corresponds to finding directions and starting, this step can spread its realm into all parts which makes it possible to realize dreams.
The third step is to develop imaginative and create power. You may feel unfamiliar with this imaginative and creative power, but the author deals with this kind of thinking seriously. Everyone needs to think if your way of thinking originates from stereotype. However, having a good imagination need not be difficult, and it starts when you have curiosity about daily life, as the Wright brothers did.
The fourth step is to climb the hill of questions and insight. When you first see this guide, it is hard to predict what the author wants to say. There are two important things in this step: one is that opinions can be prejudiced. You should be aware that your opinion may be wrong, and you sometimes need to accept others. The other is that even though memory can be temporary, writing is not. Do you take notes when you get a good idea? The author reminds us that the memory written by our hand lasts for a long time, but the memories in our brain can disappear in an instant.
The fifth step is to arrive at the time of maturity. As the title suggests, this step emphasizes on becoming mature rather than merely grown. If you want to become mature, you should try to do everything better than before, not just defeating other people. Are you devoting your time to surpassing others or expanding your limits?
The sixth step is to recognize the time for challengers has come. If the previous five steps are precondition steps for realizing dreams, the sixth step is the one for practice. The different between the first and second class depends on whether one did challenge or not. No failure is the evidence that he or she did not do different challenges. Success comes through failures. One piece of practice is worth a pound of percept.
The seventh step - the final step to realizing dreams - is that dreams become real while you do what you want. In this final step, the author advises doing something befitted to you. The thing befitted to you is fun when you do it, and difficult to stop in spite of oneself. Do you look for a work that you really want to do?
Now that you know the seven steps, what comes to your mind? The biggest merit of this book is that it is realistic and uses experiences the author went through. Suffering hardship in your youth will become the process to flying high. How about challenging yourself to fly higher?
