Is Money All You’re Leaving Behind?

I visited a senior friend of mine recently and met him having a conversation with his son, and in the process made the following comments, “the reason I am putting myself through all these is so that you can have a better life and not go through what I went through in life.” I look at this man and he is obviously very rich, and he has some of the things I desire in life but what struck me through out that day was the comment he made to his son.

Many people share similar ideas and beliefs too; they work really hard to provide for their children and also protect them from the experiences they had. But my question is what is really more important for the child, your money or your experiences? I believe that such philosophy is quite a twisted one. If you were born poor, or had to face some challenges before you became successful, you will definitely have acquired much valuable experiences and development along your way. So why deny or shield your children away from these important life lessons?

The Power to Choose

One day when my dog was still a young puppy, I had come into the house to catch it barking at and attacking its own image in a mirror, taking it for another dog. It charged and got so agitated until I had to carry it away from the mirror to prevent it from causing some damage in the house. When I discussed the incident with my vet sometime later, she explained to me that animals are territorial in nature, and this makes them always perceive other animals or see persons outside their homes as intruders, who’ve come to take over their territory. And so in other to prevent such occurrence, and prove their dominance, they often attack, in defence.

So it is with many of us today. We go through life fighting it. We expect a battle at every turn, and that is how it turns out. We expect to have enemies, and we certainly do. We expect to have one difficulty or the other, and that is exactly the way it happens. When the rains or winter come, we expect to fall sick, or feel miserable, and so we do. And that is just the way it is, and the way it’s going to be for most of us because we fail to recognise and use the power in us. – “The power to choose”. We can choose to have excellent relationships, we can choose to make everyday a great day in our lives, we can choose to live healthy lives and not be afraid of the cold, just the same way we choose what colour of clothes to wear, what brand of car to buy, what part of town to live, what TV channel  to watch, who to date or marry.

You see our whole lives are run by our choices. At this moment, whether your life is going forward or backward is your choice. Yet too often when we make bad choices, we blame God, as if it were His fault. When, most times we never even consult God to guide us on the choices we make. Even when He tries to warn us through our instincts – that inner voice that calmly tells us what we are about to do isn’t right, we ignore Him. God never imposes His will on us. He guides us and lets us choose. He only comes in when invited. Other times, we blame people – our parents, siblings, friends, partners, etc when things go wrong. Especially here in Africa we hardly accept faults and responsibility, even when it is clear that it’s our fault. When things go wrong people often ask “Who” instead of “what” or “why” our fingers are always pointing to the externals never at us.

Sureness of Hand

“An ocean liner was caught in a terrible storm. It seemed that any moment the seaworthy vessel would capsize. As one of the passengers sought safety, he saw a small child sitting in the middle of the ship’s dining room, playing with a toy, seemingly oblivious to the chaos and confusion around him. Frantically, the passenger ran up to him and screamed, ‘You’d better put on your life vest and find your parents. We are in the middle of a storm!’ the little boy looked up at the stranger and calmly replied, ‘Thank you mister, but I am not worried. My daddy is the captain of the ship.”

What about you? When everything is turning against you, can you still keep up your faith?

Self-consciousness a Killer of Dreams

Image Credit: flickr.com

“For God has not given us a spirit of timidity but one or power, love, and self-discipline.”

We all of have lofty dreams, vision, plans, desires, of doing great things with our lives, but so many of us are held back from undertaking what we long to do, and are stuck where we are, unable to make our dreams come true because we are shy of facing people, or we are too sensitive of what others may say about us, or we think we are not good enough.  Thus our lofty plans exist only in our minds.

Self- consciousness and timidity are great enemies of success. A lot of men and women have missed great opportunities in life because of these two.  So many potential award winning singers and artists have died without the world benefiting from their talents because of timidity and self-consciousness. They had great dreams and talents, but they never trusted their dreams to the real world of action, because they were afraid of failure, and of how people will react to them.

“A sensitive person feels that, whatever he does, wherever he goes, or whatever he says, he is the centre of observation. He imagines that people are criticizing his movements, making fun at his expense, or analyzing his character, when they are probably not thinking of him at all.  He does not realize that other people are too busy and too much interested in themselves and other things to devote to him any of their time beyond what is absolutely necessary.”

Self-consciousness leads to mediocrity because no one ever does anything, until he or she feels that they are a part of something greater than themselves. Folks, self-consciousness isn’t humility. If you think always hiding in the crowd and not giving your life an expression is a show of humility, you are wrong. “Humility isn’t does not require mediocrity.” By insisting that you are just this or that, or that you will never amount to anything much, in the name of humility you talk yourself down to a state of non-accomplishment