Mind Boggling
By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta
Faith in yourself and your abilities is a characteristic known as self-confidence. I have found that the class of people in the world with the highest level of self-confidence are those people labeled as “Brats”. A brat is a person, normally aged between 1 and 8 years old (sometimes a lot older), who believes that they can have anything they want and control everyone around them. The self-confidence that exudes from this class of annoying creatures is unbelievable.
A careful study of this class of people revealed an interesting fact to me. Their self-confidence does not come from their belief in themselves. It comes from their belief in their parents or guardians. They seem to believe, seemingly mistakenly, that their parents/guardians are capable of giving them whatever they want, whenever they want it. All they have to do is want it and demand it with however much vigour is necessary to get it. They almost always get what they want.
Brats may have it all good but I was not attracted to their lifestyle and could not imagine myself turning into one at this age. So I diverted my attention to children in general. I realized that children draw their confidence from what they believe their parents/guardians are capable of. Children are the poorest members of society, completely dependent on someone else to provide for them and vulnerable to the severest forms of abuse. Yet, dare you give a child a free hand. You will be surprised by how controlling they can become. At which point they turn into those creatures known as brats.
Most children eventually grow up into adults and start building a life for themselves.
I concentrated on this line of thinking for a long while and wondered how I could apply the confidence of children and their growing into adults to build myself the self-confidence I needed to fight the fear of pursuing my passions.
I realized that I needed to believe in someone greater than myself. Someone who I believed could give me anything I wanted whenever I wanted it. This was easy since I had already chosen to believe in God, my creator and giver of life. Now I gave my God the characteristic of invincibility. I chose to believe in a God who is capable of providing me with whatever I needed. Why else did He bring me into this life? I decided to adopt the same concept of God as my husband’s and attribute to my God ownership of all things on earth. Whether or not He is the God of everyone else is not my concern. He is my God.
What was difficult was accepting the superiority of God. I am a proud person and accepting anyone superior to me is not easy. I think I am capable of a lot and can be as good as the next person given the chance. So I needed to think hard and deep to find a way out of this predicament and move on with my search.
I went back to the concept of death and related it to the concept of growing up. I asked myself what happens to children when they grow up. I realized that they become adults just like their parents, capable of practically everything their parents are capable of such that their parents’ role in their lives was significantly diminished and the children could actually choose to disassociate themselves from their parents if they wanted. I have witnessed this disassociation quite frequently especially when a parent becomes needy.
This line of thinking intrigued me. It was like I was telling myself that God is only superior to me in the same sense as my dad, mum and mother. And just like I have grown up and become almost equal to my dad, mum and mother, with the same capabilities as they have, when I die, I will become almost equal to God with the same capabilities as He has.
So for now, in this life, as a human being, I could accept my inferiority as if I were a child waiting to grow up and flourish on my own. Life is merely a big school where I am taught the lessons I need to help me grow up into a responsible member of the heavenly society where my God lives and where I will go when I die/grow up! Wow, ok, sounds very interesting.
Could I really believe this to be true about my life? That was a choice I had to make.
Before making the choice, I thought seriously and deeply about what that choice would mean for me. For starters, it meant that God was like a parent to me. He created me after all so I could accept that. I could even accept His superiority in the same way that I accept my parents’ superiority without question. To me, the fact that life was given to me through my parents makes them infinitely superior no matter their faults or weaknesses.
What did it for me was the thought that I had the same capabilities as this God of mine who is invincible and when I die, I will be able to freely unleash my invincibility. If God just gave me a free hand without letting me go through the school of life, guess what I would have become? A brat!! I fully understand Him not wanting that to happen and I appreciate His decision not to let it happen and acting in my best interests. I guess He loves me too.
My proud self could not let go of that idea of my potential invincibility. It convinced me that it was best that I believe in myself and my abilities by believing that my God is an invincible God who loves me. For now, in this life as a human being learning about how to control my invincible abilities, my God can give me anything I want if I only ask for it with the same humility and respect as I have for my parents.
Just like I accepted my parents’ decisions about my life because they knew better than I did when I was a child, I can accept God’s decisions about my life because He knows better than I do now.
All I need is to listen to what He tells me and act accordingly. Just like I did with my parents. That strong feeling I get called passion must be the means by which God tells me what I need to do.
Therefore, in order to succeed in life, I need to follow my passions and have faith that as a child of an invincible God, success is inevitable.
That is my formula for success and that is what I chose to do.
By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta
Faith in yourself and your abilities is a characteristic known as self-confidence. I have found that the class of people in the world with the highest level of self-confidence are those people labeled as “Brats”. A brat is a person, normally aged between 1 and 8 years old (sometimes a lot older), who believes that they can have anything they want and control everyone around them. The self-confidence that exudes from this class of annoying creatures is unbelievable.
A careful study of this class of people revealed an interesting fact to me. Their self-confidence does not come from their belief in themselves. It comes from their belief in their parents or guardians. They seem to believe, seemingly mistakenly, that their parents/guardians are capable of giving them whatever they want, whenever they want it. All they have to do is want it and demand it with however much vigour is necessary to get it. They almost always get what they want.
Brats may have it all good but I was not attracted to their lifestyle and could not imagine myself turning into one at this age. So I diverted my attention to children in general. I realized that children draw their confidence from what they believe their parents/guardians are capable of. Children are the poorest members of society, completely dependent on someone else to provide for them and vulnerable to the severest forms of abuse. Yet, dare you give a child a free hand. You will be surprised by how controlling they can become. At which point they turn into those creatures known as brats.
Most children eventually grow up into adults and start building a life for themselves.
I concentrated on this line of thinking for a long while and wondered how I could apply the confidence of children and their growing into adults to build myself the self-confidence I needed to fight the fear of pursuing my passions.
I realized that I needed to believe in someone greater than myself. Someone who I believed could give me anything I wanted whenever I wanted it. This was easy since I had already chosen to believe in God, my creator and giver of life. Now I gave my God the characteristic of invincibility. I chose to believe in a God who is capable of providing me with whatever I needed. Why else did He bring me into this life? I decided to adopt the same concept of God as my husband’s and attribute to my God ownership of all things on earth. Whether or not He is the God of everyone else is not my concern. He is my God.
What was difficult was accepting the superiority of God. I am a proud person and accepting anyone superior to me is not easy. I think I am capable of a lot and can be as good as the next person given the chance. So I needed to think hard and deep to find a way out of this predicament and move on with my search.
I went back to the concept of death and related it to the concept of growing up. I asked myself what happens to children when they grow up. I realized that they become adults just like their parents, capable of practically everything their parents are capable of such that their parents’ role in their lives was significantly diminished and the children could actually choose to disassociate themselves from their parents if they wanted. I have witnessed this disassociation quite frequently especially when a parent becomes needy.
This line of thinking intrigued me. It was like I was telling myself that God is only superior to me in the same sense as my dad, mum and mother. And just like I have grown up and become almost equal to my dad, mum and mother, with the same capabilities as they have, when I die, I will become almost equal to God with the same capabilities as He has.
So for now, in this life, as a human being, I could accept my inferiority as if I were a child waiting to grow up and flourish on my own. Life is merely a big school where I am taught the lessons I need to help me grow up into a responsible member of the heavenly society where my God lives and where I will go when I die/grow up! Wow, ok, sounds very interesting.
Could I really believe this to be true about my life? That was a choice I had to make.
Before making the choice, I thought seriously and deeply about what that choice would mean for me. For starters, it meant that God was like a parent to me. He created me after all so I could accept that. I could even accept His superiority in the same way that I accept my parents’ superiority without question. To me, the fact that life was given to me through my parents makes them infinitely superior no matter their faults or weaknesses.
What did it for me was the thought that I had the same capabilities as this God of mine who is invincible and when I die, I will be able to freely unleash my invincibility. If God just gave me a free hand without letting me go through the school of life, guess what I would have become? A brat!! I fully understand Him not wanting that to happen and I appreciate His decision not to let it happen and acting in my best interests. I guess He loves me too.
My proud self could not let go of that idea of my potential invincibility. It convinced me that it was best that I believe in myself and my abilities by believing that my God is an invincible God who loves me. For now, in this life as a human being learning about how to control my invincible abilities, my God can give me anything I want if I only ask for it with the same humility and respect as I have for my parents.
Just like I accepted my parents’ decisions about my life because they knew better than I did when I was a child, I can accept God’s decisions about my life because He knows better than I do now.
All I need is to listen to what He tells me and act accordingly. Just like I did with my parents. That strong feeling I get called passion must be the means by which God tells me what I need to do.
Therefore, in order to succeed in life, I need to follow my passions and have faith that as a child of an invincible God, success is inevitable.
That is my formula for success and that is what I chose to do.
3 comments:
God is the true source. Very insightful.
God is the ONLY source.Very in sightful.
God is the true source. Very insightful.
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