Jerome talks purposeful living in Pain of the Heart

Author of Pain of the Heart, Mr. Yusuf Mafu Jerome, has canvassed the need for purposeful living. He said his book is designed to correct his own past mistakes, which young people keep making. According to the author who is also an industrial Pharmacist, being groomed to focus on education and come out in flying colours, he realized that it didn’t happen as it was far from the truth.

“I had set a target for myself that at age 30, I should own my business, but then I saw myself still writing application letters and so I sat back to reorganize myself, to find out what was wrong. It was in that process I came across a lot of truth, which is why connecting with trends and times is important.”

He continued, “In the society today, you see the first class graduate working for the second class graduate while the third class are in politics making laws for all. If I had my way, two things I will put in the school curriculum is entrepreneurship, guidance and counseling; they are very key. These subjects have made the whites superior to us, because they catch their children young, there you know the talent of the child and tell where exactly the child fits in.

Jerome noted that it is unnecessary for parents to insist their children study a particular course or the other, “there is no need to force a child to go to a university of technology when he does not like mathematic, or ask a child who hates blood to go study medicine and it is the emphasis on guidance and counseling that will tailor the child in the right path. If graduates understand entrepreneurship, then people will be billionaires,” he advised.

According to the author, he learnt the art of writing from his dad at a tender age, “I read a lot of literature books that were for older people and that stimulated my interest. Being the son of a teacher, we were told that academic intelligence was a way of liberation and then you move on to have a good job, but later on in life, I realized it was one quarter of the truth, because being to the four walls of an institution does not make you educated. What we acquire when we go to school is IQ and that accounts for only 20 per cent of the success rate of an individual, 80 per cent is left to other factors we neglect. That is why we are so intellectual, yet we are poor; we don’t have purpose and we labour everyday.”

While addressing some of the issues contained in his 22-chapter book, he noted that every human in the world is made up of the spirit, soul and body. “These three must be in harmony for success to occur, and then you must understand what you must do as a human to ensure they function. The spirit is the foundation, this is not about religion – man is created as a spiritual being and so for success to come, you must align yourself with your spiritual being. The soul is being controlled by the will, mind and emotion and these must be in harmony for man to move forward. The mind is controlled by information and knowledge we acquire, the will is controlled by self-discipline and self control which comes from the knowledge of morals we learn from schools, homes and society, then the emotion is controlled by purpose that is the reason man is being created.”

Continuing Jerome said, “Every human being, no matter how dull, has a particular role/purpose he has to fulfill and until he discovers that, every other thing he labours for will be hardship. That is why I said that our labours look like hardship; we work to survive and pay bills and nobody bothers about purpose. A lot of people have accused me of wasting money, printing books when people are looking for money to eat. It is because we do not read that we have a poor mindset and until we have a paradigm shift, we can’t move forward.

Even with the financial implication for Jerome, he is not deterred from writing, “I sell properties to get it out because when I see younger people make same mistakes, I feel bad and fear for our future. I want to make the next generation better. The financial implication has slowed down the process of publishing the books, if I had sponsorships, then I will increase my pace. I have to rather work first to get the money to publish,” he added.