Tolle Lege: Take Up and Read

Posted by Donald on Sep 29th, 2010 | Category: Books, Education, Health, Lifestyle, Management Skills, People

Donald Norfolk Many people, at a crossroad in their lives, find uplift and inspiration by opening a book at random and reading the words with which they’re immediately confronted. The most famous example was the epiphany of Augustine of Hippo, who was going through a period of great personal crisis in the summer of 386 AD, largely because his dissolute life style was causing his mother great distress. While wandering in a state of mental anguish he thought he heard the words of a young child repeatedly chanting the words tolle lege (Take up and read). Taking this as a divine command, he took a copy of St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and opened it by chance at Chapter 13. Here he read what he took to be a direct command from the apostle, instructing him to give up his debauched way of life and ‘put on the Lord’. This led to his on-the-spot conversion. From then onwards he led an abstemious, celibate life, devoted wholly to the promulgation of the Christian faith.

Many years later Steven Covey, the well-known management consultant and self-help guru. had a similar climactic experience. This he relates in his best-selling book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, where he tells how he picked a book at random as he was wandering through a college library. ‘As I opened it, my eyes fell upon a paragraph that powerfully influenced the rest of my life. I read the paragraph over and over again. It basically contained the simple idea that there is a gap or a space between stimulus and response.’ Unlike Pavlov’s dogs we don’t salivate every time a bell is rung. We’re not automatons. We can always choose how we respond to changes in our environment. This Covey realised as he read those words. There is always a gap between the stimuli we receive and the response we make. This brought about a paradigm shift in his thinking, because while he had always accepted that we have powers of self-determination, he now realised that ‘the key to both our growth and happiness is how we use that space.’

To test the effectiveness of the Tolle Legge technique, and see if it worked as well for me as it did for Augustine and Covey, I picked up three books which I had within arm’s reach and opened them at random. Here’s what I discovered:-

It’s never too late to learn This is the message I received when I opened page 201 of John Marks Templeton’s Worldwide Laws of Life. Colonel Sanders, the founder of the Kentucky Fried Chicken business didn’t learn about the fast food business until he was in his sixties. And Grandma Moses, the American primitive artist, left it until her eighties before she took up painting. Nevertheless, over the next twenty years, her works became prized by collectors around the world, one selling for over a million dollars. History proves that old dogs can be taught new tricks. As Templeton affirmed ‘No one’s education is ever complete.’
Act with integrity. On the right hand side of my desk, waiting for my attention, is a book I’ve been asked to review. It’s a recently published collection of essays by Peter F. Drucker, the management expert. (The Drucker Lectures.) This book I flicked open at page 175, which offers executives a soul searching ‘mirror test’. Drucker suggests that every morning, when they look in the mirror, they should ask themselves whether they admire the moral character of the person they face. Does that person cut corners, offer bribes, break promises and do underhand things for immediate, short term gains? The answers are vital, says Drucker, because while ‘you may be able to fool people outside your organization … you cannot fool people inside your organization. As you behave, they will too. You will corrupt the whole organization.’
Rediscover Your Grass Roots. Directly above my computer is a row of my own books. Taking down a copy of Fit for Life: Second Chance, I opened it more or less in the middle where I found the following paragraph, which I’m free to quote in its entirety since I own the copyright. ‘Try to find time to escape the complexities of modern life and for a few hours follow a simpler life style – gardening, fishing, star gazing, making home made wine or walking in the country. Then you will leave behind your day-to-day cares and discover the vis medicatrix naturae – the healing power of nature.’