I believe our life
experiences form a grid through which we filter everything we see, feel and
hear.
Everyone has a story,
a past, an experience whether positive or negative; it plays a vital role in
our lives. It's significant for the present and our future. It gives us our
present worldview. It determines our paradigm, how we filter, feel, perceive or
see things. This has a significant influence on how our destiny is shaped. It's
important to know that what we see, determines what we do, which further
determines what we get. This, in turn, determines what we see, what we do and
what we get, and the circle continues. It's important to be very intentional in
this circle to really interrogate what you see. What informs it and what does it
mean to you, before you are quick to do something about it. Once you do
something, be sure to get an outcome. It might be too late to change things
once you do something about what you see.
I have had people make
comments or adopt different kinds of belief, and it's all informed by what they
see or perceive which is primarily determined by their past experience. Some of
our past experience might be things we had no control over while others might
be things we probably could control. Whatever you see might be mainly due to
your nature, nurture or the choices you have made over the years. It's
important to interrogate your past and know which ones are as a result of
nature, nurture and choice. Nature is what is really you, your type, your DNA,
that which is hard-wired in you. You can't change this whether you like it or
not. Should you decide to change it, it might be costly hence not worth it. Nurture
is what is external that has influenced you — your schooling, beliefs, mentors,
parenting, childhood experiences, etc. Choices, on the other hand, are the
things you have knowingly or unknowingly decided to do, be part of; those
things you have gotten the opportunity to make a choice on. They are primarily
determined by your nature and nurture. But you can also rise above your nature
and nurture to make a superior choice on how you want to see things in your
life.
Knowing that as much
as you might not like some aspect of your nurture or nature, and wish you could
change it; which is not possible, it's important, you get to understand it and
decide how to respond to it. If you have been reading all the articles I have
been writing, you probably by now know that my father died when I was 11 years
old and that indeed changed a lot in my life and my siblings. Our lives were
never the same again. Recently, those past issues have come back, so strong and
influencing my present, that I'm at a point I'm wondering how to respond to
them. Being the 1st born, a lot of things get thrown my way and some
of them I always have no idea what to say or do. I have an option of hiding my
head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich and wishing everything away, wish
that nothing is happening or it won’t affect me. That I can shield myself and
my children from it all. Or make a choice to do something within my abilities. Sitting
with a friend recently to talk about these issues made it clear that as much as
it's confusing, stressful, complicated, I need to do something bold. It's going
to heavy on me, but I have to do it. Start small, and do it. Hopefully, I will
get a different outcome that will give me another experience, that I can build
on to do something again and maybe God will come through, and things will change
in a way that only God knows. My role now is to irrespective of what is clear
that I see and I don't like; I need to do something. I'm committed to this.
What do you see in
your life? How has your past influenced it? What are you going to do about it?
It's time if you are at a point where I got, confused, fatigued, frustrated,
etc, you decided to do something about it. Think of starting small.
If this resonates with
you, choose to do something about your situation. Look for a small community of
friends who you can do this together with. Being accountable to a few and practicing with
a few. It’s about building a community of friends to share each other’s journey
of interrogating what you see and how your past has influenced it, then
deciding to do something about your life; being intentional. You have to be deeply committed to each other
and desire to see each other grow in this journey. You have to create support,
encouragement and accountability platform for each other. The community has to
be as small as possible so that there is active engagement by all involved.
Find a community
around you and see if these conversations make sense to you.
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