In the article “Why are we so curious?”, published by BBC, senior lecturer in psychology and cognitive science, Tom Stafford, stated that humans have the tendency to want to know the answers to the things that they don’t already know, disregarding whether or not it will benefit them. The extremely rising popularity of “Face App” among international communities might be the most recent testament to that.
“Study the past if you would define the future,” Chinese philosopher, Confucius said. This led me to think about the days before I existed, as it seemed mysterious to me. That’s why I decided to search in my library to look for old books to try to learn more about the past. To my surprise, I found a 1933 magazine from the Fouad El Awal Secondary School.
Via Fouad El Awal Secondary School magazine
This magazine included a lot of articles in various fields, such as mathematics, history, literature, and science. It was also divided into three sections: Arabic, English and French. A lot of the articles published tackled issues in a different approach, rather than the approaches used today.
One of these articles was written in Arabic, and it was called “Our Youth and entrepreneurship”, by science student, Hamed El Shazly. This article shed light on how the Egyptian youth wanted to work for the government, and it expressed the fears they had for working in the entrepreneurial field.
Via Fouad El Awal Secondary School magazine
El Shazly stated that during that time, the youth only cared to work for the government. They disregarded the fact that they would earn low salaries, and they didn’t care about their job positions. These factors amused El Shazly, as he didn’t understand why they would want to work as a typewriter, for example, while they could work in the entrepreneurial field and use their knowledge and skills instead.
“When foreigners come to Egypt and work in the entrepreneurial field, we see them returning to their countries loaded with money in no time. On the other hand, our youth avoid taking this route, as if Egypt’s money is forbidden to them,” El Shazly added.
Via School football team in 1933
This may come as a surprise to many people, as nowadays the situation is different. There are now a lot of Egyptians who set their foot into the field of entrepreneurship, and have established their very own startups. Also, the Egyptian government is paving the way for the youth to have their own businesses, by encouraging and helping them to better serve society and the economy.
El Shazly had a similar approach when it came to Egyptian products. He stated that Egyptians should encourage these products, even if they are ‘perceived’ as lower in quality. This would help boost the economy, and encourage local investors to invest in Egypt, and let the money of the people stay for the people.
Back then, people who read this article or other articles with the same ideologies, would have disagreed with the content, or believed that it was inefficient. However, nowadays, if anyone said anything that might happen in the future, a lot of people would believe it. This can be due to the fact that entrepreneurs have influenced others to think outside the box and encouraged them to develop new ideas.
According to the article “Studying history is more important than ever in today’s economy”, published by Medium magazine, people should not memorize the past or just know about the facts. They should take an approach in which they try to understand it, as it helps individuals acquire better problem solving and leadership skills.
