Learning: The Never Ending Journey

Education – Not a Duty, More a Worthwhile Pursuit

Many of us, while at school, required every parental trick in the book just to get us to attend. There are many reasons why we often do not want to go to school – from simple, innocent ones like just wanting to stay in bed or have a day at home to more worrying ones like bullying at school or difficulties with the work. Either way, it is a rare child indeed who goes from day one of their schooling to the final day of high school without having a single day where they just didn’t want to go. The first rung of the education ladder where it becomes a true case of self-motivation for many is when college comes around – and for some people th  at day never comes.

Some of us never go to college or university. Sometimes that is through choice, and sometimes it is a matter of circumstances dictating that we cannot go. There is no reason that a person who has not been to college should not go on to thrive in the workplace anyway. If you have skills that are not particularly suited to the more academic field then there is no harm to proceeding in a world that does not require a college diploma. The trick is to know where your talents lie and play to that. However, education is not limited to your childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. You can take up a course of learning at any time.

If you are often complaining of feeling bored or unfulfilled, the reasons for going into some kind of education are all the greater. It does not even have to be for any loftier reason than for your own enjoyment. Learning something just for the sake of it is a real kick in itself. In fact, looking at things from the point of view of an adult who has been through the school system and didn’t much care for it can remind you of the value of knowledge. Many of us didn’t want to go to school because we didn’t see the point of it. Often a child will not, because they lack the overall sense of perspective that a few decades on this earth provide. You may not have wanted to go to school, you may have played truant a few times or played the sick note more than once, and that’s fine. It is when you are an adult that you begin to wish you had paid a bit more attention.

More than anything, learning something new is innately thrilling. It challenges your perceptions, it increases your understanding of the world and it gives you the chance to build your mind. Being a student again, and actually being there because you want to be, allows you to approach things with an open mind and be a more receptive learner. Back at school, you will have had a million other things you would rather have been doing, and you were still trying to make sense of the world. Having that bit more experience allows you to see education for what it is – fun and worthwhile.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com. This article originally published on the above website on April 9, 2009.

Why Canada Is The Place To Be Right Now

Best Place Canada

As things stand today, there are few parts of the globe that have not been touched by the problems in financial markets – problems which began in earnest over a year ago now and have been worsening ever since. The situation right now seems to point to a global recession which will only begin to lift during the latter part of next year. While playing the blame game is certainly not going to help anyone, there is a lot of blame flying around anyway, most of which is being aimed at the most acquisitive economies, and a large amount of that is directed squarely at the United States. Conversely, experts seem to have mostly good things to say about Canada.

There is little doubt that part of the reason for this is the proximity with the United States, which allows a side-by-side comparison between neighbours. While the crisis itself has been attributed to the sub-prime mortgage lending crisis in the US – although this is only part of the story, and the sub-prime market’s collapse was more catalyst than cause – the global nature of the markets ensures that when one economy takes a blow, the businesses which have investments in that economy suffer also. Hence, it was not just US banks that suffered in the light of the credit crisis, and when the problems precipitated a comparatively small gust of wind, those businesses which were not built on the strongest of foundations began to collapse.

The credit crisis, therefore, may have been catalyzed by what was happening in the US, but it immediately affected banks in the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan (which was already having problems) and beyond. To date it has even caused governments to be recalled, including that of Iceland, which had been surfing a wave of financial well-being. Canada itself has been far from untouched, but the current suffering here has been more of an inevitable outcome of global problems than a headlong plunge precipitated by failure to plan. While other countries pretty much dived head first into the cracks, Canada was slowly sucked towards them before sliding over the edge. Therefore, when the markets begin their definitive improvement, Canada will be one of the first countries to climb out of the mess.

There are so many stereotypes about supposed national tendencies, and some of the more unkind ones seem to imply that Canada is a country where nothing much happens, and what does happen is not that exciting. Anyone living here can see how inaccurate that is. The upside, however, of that stereotype is that Canada tends to find itself in better shape than others having refused to gamble away everything it owns.

Things right now are shaky – not just in Canada, but in most of the world – but this does mean that if you have cash to invest, prices now are at their lowest in some time and may not have far to fall. And once the economic indicators dictate that we are on the way to recovery, watch those numbers climb. Much better to watch it from Canada than anywhere else.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Canadapersonalfinancewebsite.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com. This article originally published on the above website on Apr 10, 2009.

Cultural Travel Tips

Literary Holidays

To go on holiday is quite enough for many people. Once you get to that mid-point in the year, having been working flat out for some months, it is more than enough to get away from it all and spend some time by a swimming pool. Others, however, will enjoy the chance to go and do something that they have not had the opportunity to do for some time. Cultural trips are something that can be considered a niche market – you either enjoy it or you do not. They are, however, growing more popular than ever, and holiday makers will look to the books on their shelves before the brochures at the travel agency when it comes to planning a holiday.

The world does not view literature as something that as borders. There are great writers from many countries, and their influences, muses and their childhood haunts are greatly varied. Whoever your favourite writer is, there is a tour to be made in their honour. Their original writings may not even have been in English – some of the finest writers in the world are only available through the wonders of translation. This makes it all the better to take a little literary tour in their honour – you can enjoy the wonders of another country while witnessing what influenced your heroes. If it so happens that your favourite writer grew up 25 kilometres away from where you live, then you can at least make a cheap day trip out of the experience.

For the Canadian bibliophile, it is possible to travel and see the old haunts of arguably Canada’s greatest living fiction author Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale among other books. A varied childhood took Margaret from her birthplace in Ottawa to the wilder areas of Northern Quebec and back again, before heading on to Sault Sainte Marie and Toronto, where she read English. She has taught in many universities in Canada and beyond as a professor of English. For any budding writer, to see the sights that sparked such creativity into life can surely never be a bad thing.

For those who wish to spread their wings a little more, there are options just beyond the borders of Canada – some people will invariably wish to follow in the footsteps of the great travelogue authors like Jack Kerouac or Hunter S Thompson. Others will be keen to see the sights that influenced the likes of F Scott Fitzgerald, James Ellroy and Edgar Allen Poe, to whose work Baltimore has become an almost permanent monument.

Further south, in the Hispanic area of Central and South America there are many reminders of the great work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende and Carlos Fuentes. Elsewhere in the world there have been amazing writers in so many nations – Ireland has Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw and WB Yeats, England has William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer and very many others. France and Spain have had wonders which need no introduction, and the Africa of Senghor and Fanon among others will capture the imagination of any lover of great literature.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Travelnowsimply.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to ahmeddawn.com site. This article originally published on the above website on June 26, 2009.

Want to Be Ultra-Rich Fast? Move to Bangladesh

How to Get Rich Fast

I was expecting a comparatively quiet cabin when I boarded my Business Class Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to Dhaka in November 2017. But to my surprise it was all full. What I did not understand then, I understand now after global ultra-rich research firm Wealth-X published their World Ultra Wealth Report 2018 report.

Contrary to popular belief, China is not the country producing ultra-high net worth (UHNW) population (those with $30+ million net worth) most. Bangladesh is the global leader and the fastest growing country in the world making people ultra-rich.

Here are the top 10 countries (growth rate) producing an ultra-rich population in the last 6 years (2012-2017):

Bangladesh (17.3%)

Chine (13.4%)

Vietnam (12.7%)

Kenya (11.7%)

India (10.7%)

Hong Kong (9.3%)

Ireland (9.1%)

Israel (8.6%)

Pakistan (8.4%)

United States (8.1%)

Courtesy: Wealth-X report

The ultra-high net worth (UHNW) population in Bangladesh posted a staggering 17.3% growth. The global UHNW number increased 12.9%. So China is not the global leader creating ultra-rich, that title goes to Bangladesh.

The top-ten list is different in terms of where the richest 595 UHNW population live:

US (79,595)

Japan (17,915)

China (16,875)

Germany (15,080)

Canada (10,840)

France (10,120)

Hong Kong (10,010)

United Kingdom (9,370)

Switzerland (6,400)

Italy (5,960)

Courtesy: Wealth-X report

So if you want to get rich fast, pack your bag and head to Bangladesh, which has been ranked as the fastest growing country in the world to become rich.

Why China Will Dominate the 21st Century

China and The 21st Century

Published Date : April 17, 2010 ADawnJournal.com

The 19th century was the British Century, when the British Empire dominated the planet. The 20th century was the American Century, when the United States and its culture dominated the planet. At the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, what country will dominate? What country will feel its reach extended and what country will have its culture reach every region of the planet?

Well, while many want to think that it will be the United States; most experts feel that while the United States will remain very important, the true dominator of the 21st century will be China.

In a poll done by The Washington Post and ABC News in February of 2010, 53 percent of respondents felt that the United States’ role in the 21st century will be smaller than it was in the 20th century. In addition, 43 percent feel that the country to dominate the 21st century will be China.

One reason for this is the incredibly rapid growth of the nation. In 1980, 53 percent of the Chinese population lived in poverty. In 2010, just 30 years later, only eight percent of the population is in poverty thanks to the rapidly increasing size of the Chinese middle class. The economy of China has also been growing, quite quickly, at a world-dominating 8.7 percent per year. This is well above what the United States economy is growing at. As well, the United States owes China more money than China owes the United States. The massive amount of consumerism in the United States has greatly helped China, where a vast amount of American products are actually made.

Factories are being built at a blistering pace in China, and the country is also investing heavily in green energy. All of this is making it appear that China is going to be the country to watch during the 21st century.

Of course, China is not exempt from problems. The country still has a lot of work to do in order to reach the same level as the United States in other regards. These include:

1.   China needs to create more political freedoms for its citizens.

2.   China needs to ensure that it has higher standards for the types of products it uses and the materials it uses in the products, like lead.

3.   China needs to cut back on its coal power use to keep the country from becoming heavily polluted.

4.   China needs to take a more diplomatic approach with other countries, especially concerning Taiwan and Tibet.

In the meantime, China is working hard to be a force to be reckoned with. While it may seem like China is just emerging as a giant in the 21st century, it is also important to remember that the country has actually been a force for 5,000 years. In fact, China has created many of the inventions the Western World uses, but they did so centuries before Europe. China is always a force to be reckoned with.