I dedicate this article to the late Steve Jobs, my role model who oversaw Apple Inc.’s 1997 “Think Different” campaign.
It might sound quite heretic to religious people, but I have to be as honest as the mirror anyway. I think more and pray less; I think different more than I pray fervently. Well, I believe in prayer as a Christian – it is a supernatural secret, key and strategy. However, I think and think different most of the time, because I realised that the majority of things that happen to me in my everyday life could be well addressed through that. Besides, I never grew into a genius by chance; I had to think different first. I also feel proud to be usually ridiculed for thinking different. In fact, one great reason why I am really argumentative is: I think different, and that repels normal thinking. Yes, I think, I think critically, I think intelligently, and I think independently, but most importantly, I think different. I even believe that to think different differs from to think differently; the former is complete in nature, and the latter is partial in nature.
Now let us try to understand the truths about thinking and thinking different. I love Google’s simple yet impressive definition of “think,” which says, “…use one’s mind actively to form connected ideas.” So technically, many people do not really think, because to think is to form congruent ideas in your mind in an involving manner. Henry Ford, the pioneer of the automobile industry and one of the richest individuals of all time, once revealed that, “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.” And it is somehow normal for the average person to think, but very few people think different. Hey, geniuses are the ones who think different! How will I know that someone is a genius? Okay, he thinks different.
Moreover, anyone who blames others like his family, friends, the society and government for his own troubles like unemployment does not actually think enough or well. It is not an insult but an admonition. Anyone who is entangled in a chronic mess like poverty simply does not think different. For almost everything we experience in our individual lives is directly proportional to what and how we think individually. Therefore, you act what you think, and how you act shows how you think. It is a fact of life. No wonder the Bible, in Proverbs 23:7, states that as a man thinks so is he. You are, and not will be, what you think all the time. An ordinary man is an ordinary thinker; an extraordinary man is an extraordinary thinker. You cannot think normal and expect to be different in your way of life; you become different by thinking different.
I hereby introduce an incredible story which epitomises “Article 404: Think, Think Different!” It is all about Alloysius Attah and his “Farmerline” entrepreneurial initiative. He is one of the founders of Farmerline, an electronically oriented agricultural support company here in Ghana. Alloysius together with his co-founder thought and thought different and established a rare agricultural enterprise in our part of the world. These start-up entrepreneurs did not focus on the conventional aspects of agriculture, but they developed a very unique platform to help the ordinary farmer by sending SMS and voice messages on weather forecast, market prices, farming techniques, agrochemical applications etc. at a subsidised fee. Farmerline is simply a virtual agricultural extension officer.
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