Pain

When you feel pain, don’t run from it. Do not avoid it or escape it. A lot of people do and I used to. Pain hurts. It sucks, and some pain changes you. It makes you resentful, cunning, vengeful, dark inside.

Pain can only be overcome when you face it. It’s not easy because no one wants to expose themselves to what hurts. There’s even some pain today that I still don’t face. But the only way to overcome pain, or any type for that matter, is to face it.

Don’t go out with friends when you feel it.

Don’t binge-watch movies or TV shows, ignoring it.

Don’t make your spouse or partner the escape way to get out of all that pain.

Don’t drink or smoke it away.

Pain you run away from and don’t face, simply comes back to you and stays until you face it. Head on.

It’s a cruel fact of life.

So – deal with it!

Go somewhere you can be alone and just let it be with you – as painful as it is. Let it shred you to pieces inside as it does.

Face it!

At some point later, you’ll get to a lull – a sort of place where it can’t really get worse than this, you’re already there. That’s rock bottom.

And once you’re there, you can transmute whatever painful emotion you’re feeling.

Go read a book.

Go tend to your garden.

Workout.

Write.

Draw.

Create.

Take on a new course.

Learn a new skill.

Do some research about your flaws and psychology.

And keep doing whatever it is that’s productive.

Don’t look at the time, don’t look at the watch. Just do it anyway. If you finished one session, go for another.

Just do it!

After a while, you’ll forget what brought you into pain in the first place.

Feel the pain first, then when you’re used to it, be productive – and stay that way until the pain is gone.

That is how you beat pain and grow.

Now that I’ve given a positive life lesson, I’ll get ready for life giving me another ass-kicking at some point. It always happens that way.

So what. You only live once.

Die empty.

Soldier on!

You got this.

Adapting To Gender Inequality

I’m a man and cannot tell women how to live. Only females can teach femininity. I know a bit about gender inequality, though & am outspoken about the plight of female victims of gender inequality all over the world. Gender inequality is a crime. It’s heinous and mostly perpetrated by men. It’s both personal & institutional, meaning it happens amongst people and is carried out by both the private and public sector. If I had a daughter, I won’t lie, I’ll teach her a lot of guy things so that she will be prepared for the iniquities given from males.

First of all, I think females should at least learn comprehensive self defence, ideally from an early age. Why? Because men beat and kill women and I don’t want that to happen anymore. If I had a daughter, I’m sorry but I would insist she learn how to fight, so that I can stop worrying about her safety as she grows up to become a young woman. Date rape, domestic violence, sexual assault & gang rape are all reasons females in the world should learn a martial art or two, to adjust to the grim reality of this world. A woman who can kick your ass is a threat to any man, even those who can fight and a lot of men avoid stepping to people they know can fight. That’s just the way a lot of men are: coward!

Secondly, work extremely hard to be the best at what you do. Women often have to work at least twice as hard as men to get the same recognition. Be the best so that you can rise through the ranks and order men around. Men respect authority and if it’s a woman who doesn’t take any bullsh*t, they respect her even more. Power is what humbles a lot of men. They subdue themselves to whoever’s powerful, because they want want to be a victim. It’s ironic because the people who victimize women the most are men. Be so good, nobody messes with you. Then you won’t have to worry about being victimized anymore. Nobody will challenge your power.

Another thing is that too few women are outspoken. This is commonly viewed as a weakness even though it isn’t. Men generally think that if you don’t speak out for yourself, you’re a pushover and they can get away with murder when it comes to you. Stand up for yourself, even when you’re scared! It’s hard but it gets easier with every time you do it. I like my women temperamental, with fire. I’m a shy, layed back guy so it’s a good mix. But these kind of women are only a minority and most women simply go with the status quo, even if they don’t like it. I understand that women often do this for the greater good of their family, so that they don’t suffer any worse but something needs to be done. That’s why I canvass for everyone to speak out for and help females to beat gender inequality because it affects us all.

Next point is solidarity. Females stick well together and form bonds with each other easily. They’re open socially, so they talk about a lot and clear up a lot of things verbally and get it off their chest. There needs to be a lot more of this. Females in every community should form unions, clubs, groups, societies and organizations to exclusively express and tackle their issues and well being. Thank God there’s now a UN Women body in the United Nations. I never thought I would see it in my lifetime. This is great but females need to unite all the time, wherever they are, as this counters the consequences of male only led administrations throughout much of the world. We need female organizations because that way, women strongly influence the policies accepted by the masses of the world.

Women need to build more businesses. In many parts of the world, entrepreneurship is largely a masculine thing. However, entrepreneurship is protected and promoted by governments because it creates jobs, cuts unemployment and contributes to GDP. Corporations are power and the more women can run it and primarily empower other younger women and females, the more women can balance the skewed arrangement of wealth distribution in the world, that is largely in men’s favour.

With these points above, females can tangibly change the world to a more gender neutral, productive & socio-economically sustainable eco space for all of us. This is the best way to not only adapt to gender inequality, but to ultimately beat it!

Fly

Only you can do it for yourself. No one can flap your wings for you. You have to jump off the cliff on your own. That doesn’t mean you won’t see other birds in the sky. Everyone who or everything that deems flight, reaches for the Heavens. To keep you company, to be on their way. It requires guts and a whole lot of faith. You put more belief in yourself than a shrink. And you constantly confront your fear.

Flight. It’s something so few of us do, although we’re all capable of it. Many believe it to be fantasy, others give up on it, too damn easy. If anything in your life is worth having, then you’ll have to put up a fight for it. And if you lose, you’ll have to fight until you win. It’s that easy. Funny how dumb we sometimes choose to be. Entitlement doesn’t exist. It’s a tough world out there, and if you want it – go get it! It is possible to learn flight from the get-go and just build up the pieces as you make a living for yourself. There are times though, when you’re falling through great depths – and the only thing you can do to stop it, is to learn how to fly. I belong to the latter group, despite having identified with the former for a long time. In order to save myself and prevent disaster, I resorted to flight: Barely able to run, I spread my wings and reached for the sky. I flew to make it. Now I fly to be free.

Your biggest potential, your greatest skill, I do not know about. Your best achievement, your largest victory, I’m not aware of. You can be your key ally or your worst enemy. No one can live your life for you. Since you’re reading this, know that you’re incredibly privileged, because you’re part of a minuscule, global minority who can afford the luxuries you take for granted! I used to complain of having bad shoes – until I acknowledged the destitute with no legs and then I shut the fuck up!

It doesn’t depend on the world for you to spread your wings. Humans are angels, on a test to see how well they can co-op without wings. Believe and you will achieve. People are not a confirmation of your strength: It doesn’t matter if what you’re about to do, has never been done before. After my second year at university, I failed a first year examination for the overall third time. I was broker than joke and struggled bad to keep up. That summer, I got kicked out. When I met the student adviser about getting back in, he told me I had a better chance winning the lottery (Yes, he actually said that.). I refused to concede defeat, opened up to the campus counselor and wrote my appeal to the board of the business school. A few weeks later, I got re-instated. I never informed the adviser because I didn’t need to: That was the single most powerful where I realized my capability to greatness and vowed to become self-dependent from then on. Fast forward six years and I’m running my firm, won a World Summit Youth Award Runner-up for developing a superior e-project, called ‘Mother Nature‘, that was chosen among 30 winning e-projects out of 630 international youth new media creations; scored a total 90% grade in a highly competitive Internet Governance capacity building e-programme for high-performing technocrats & government officials, under the Internet Society’s Next Generation Leaders course and am releasing a brilliant product of my competence of brilliant creative writing & illustration, this year. My hunch was right because it came from my spirit, and whatever your spirit tells you (if you choose to acknowledge it) is right.

Am I done? Nah, not as long as I live. Versatility complements success: You re-define your game when needed and stay fresh. We’re conditioned in this world to compete others. Unless you’re using competition to improve some part of yourself, it’s the dumbest thing you can do! Only you can breathe for yourself, how can anyone do it for/with you? Where is the sense then to engage in an activity, that only you can ensure your participation of – by yourself, against other people, so as to see who will ‘come out on top’? Doesn’t that sound stupid? ‘Yeah, I can only dead-lift 100kg, by myself, but I’ll compete with ya!’ I think most people fear truly being alone, by only being able to do things by themselves, that they throw themselves into competitive activities, to take some of that ‘sting’ away. What you don’t know, doesn’t have to sting you, though. Isn’t ignorance bliss?

What they only need to do is gather up all the balls they can muster and give themselves that push. They may crash off that cliff but if they, in their descent, believe in themselves, nature will be but all too happy to see yet another rising star. I’m flapping my wings already. In the race against myself, I’m doing good: I think I’m ahead! What about you, how far are you? If you is still kicking your ass, it may be time to give that push to yourself. Don’t worry about that unknown, the people there know it’s humanly possible. So jump! Fly! SOAR!

 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”

– Ephesians 1:3 (abridged)

Disclaimer: This article is for motivational purposes. I do not accept any liabilities that may arise on your part, for acting on it. And I include this disclaimer because a blogger who doesn’t take legalities seriously, is only a conviction waiting to happen.

Acknowledge

As a teenager, I used to flex my calves anytime I walked past people by the side, whenever I wore shorts, to make them look bigger. I’m skinny & I’ve had lots of issues with my body type, ever since puberty. People in school would always laugh at my natural features: Long legs, thin arms and a tall frame. Growing up, I remember my parents struggling a lot to make ends meet. We never lived like the many affluent people of my school. We were always way below their spending-power. Family life was hard & I never really got stimulated by school. My spirit couldn’t stand the type of education: All scholastic, not creative. Skinny, young me had problems often in class & got poor grades, averagely. Apart from excelling in Fine Art, Sports & English, I sucked at school.

I used to expect negativity from groups of people I’d walk by. Feeling insufficient, not good enough and/or just not up to ‘their standards’ would make me anxious. Being one of the few black people in a German private school, I wasn’t everyone’s taste. I still get that anxiety from time to time. Paranoia.

I have a gap between my two front teeth and from a young age felt self-conscious about my ‘incomplete smile’, from a period a growing number of school-mates would notice it & pick on it. I am emotional, sensitive and could never really harness it throughout the bulk of my life. Though I’ve started, I’m still working on it today. It took me 26 years to realize that being emotional & sensitive is incredibly powerful. Self-teaching: When you win a battle, you remember how you fought.

I have a birth mark over a corner of my lips and my family regularly used to ‘tease’ me about having a characteristic of the supermodel, Cindy Crawford. Being male, I never really knew how to take that, and it caused issues.

I live very much in my imagination, ever since I was I was a toddler, animation used to fascinate me. Because animation is pure imagination, I sometimes had troubles living in reality when switching from imagination. I once placed a pin upside-down on a teacher’s chair and when she came in the class and discovered it, I couldn’t really distinguish the severity of the action in reality from the anything goes in animation.

I used to stammer from my childhood until my mid-teens. The older I got within that period, the more embarrassing it became to me. I got embarrassed because from the time it was first noticed, my classmates used to laugh at me and news spread quickly. Every time we would sit in class and the teacher would make us read a text out loud individually in turns, I would agitate loads all through the exercise, inside. When it got to my turn, I would just pause and not say anything until the stuttering inside me would recede and I’d be able to read fluently. I did that in conversations as well, regardless with whom. And people would be weirded-out wondering just what my problem was but I would just stay silent. I still do that, intermittently. Rather than pausing though, I try to think of alternate ways to say my words in order to suppress my stuttering, then just say it. Now I’m all grown up. I outgrew most of it, I suppose – but when I hear kids stammer, I can’t help but to feel related!

I used to play on the basketball team in school. One time, we had a championship with other schools and we played an important match. We were doing well until the last 7 seconds of the game where I was passed the ball, decided to go for a lay-up and traveled instead. The opponents won the game and the team never forgave me. Never having addressed that, caused a handicap mentally that knocked my confidence. I made other teams but never saw myself as a competent player again – I would prefer to pass the ball once it was given to me. My game has now changed & my ego is making me state that but the scars remain.

I love to dance! Ever since I was a kid I used to dance hardcore. As a teen, I looked funny often when trying to do what I saw in videos. I thought I looked good, but apparently reality & perception are two different things. Eventually I stopped perceiving myself positively and bought into criticisms of my wackiness on the floor. I would secretly drill hard on myself when I’d be watching videos but I’d never get up to my adopted, external standard. Disabled self-perception.

At about 12, I couldn’t do 3 push-ups. I was too skinny. I was ripped apart for it in class and that made me to always hang around with and compete against the more athletic guys in class, exclusively in sports. I felt I had to prove something to them. I’d be good at marathons, but would choose sprints instead, just so I could compete against the guys & prove myself! I would regularly lose (badly), but inside I’d feel a bit good for having done it with them. I still see ricochets of that in my adult life sometimes. The need to always have something to prove, to everyone but myself; for pains I suffered way back some time ago, tucked-in deep in the past.

Being skinny made me muscular. Being the dumb kid in class, made me work hard later in my studies. Being in education I couldn’t stand, made me dive into my strengths & interests. Being lanky, made me not stop dancing. Being indecisive and discouraged drastically changed my game. (Hello, Ego!) Being insecure, inferior & paranoid made me ferocious towards living my life. Being blessed & in touch with my feminine side made me gratifyingly love myself. Being a stammerer made me accept myself. Being imaginative made me confident in the world. Having a gap between my teeth, taught me how to smile.

We always hear about self re-invention, becoming the new you and re-engineering yourself. Personal development is good but what isn’t is when we’re conditioned to hate our ‘past’ selves and embrace our ‘new’ selves because that’s who we are now. And it couldn’t be further from the truth. There is neither a ‘new’ you, nor an ‘old’ you. Just YOU! When we start to see ourselves for the great big achievements we’ve earned, the things we’ve overcome, the behavior we’ve adopted, our ego takes over. And that creates problems. We start to only see ourselves for the changes we’ve made and/or gone through but not for the the great pain, hurt, tribulation, woe, sorrow, agony & misery we’ve endured, with all their negativity. One-dimensional monsters. How can we become one-dimensional, when we are truly multi-dimensional? We exist in mind, body, soul, spirit, art, time, literature, love etc, each of which combine not to make us one-dimensional monsters but PERFECT humans!

I am my pain. I am my healing.

I am the better moment. I am the painful memory.

I am all these things.

I am what I have experienced. I am what I experience.

ACKNOWLEDGE and you shall be set free. Because you never went nowhere – you were always you. Christina Aguilera’s Beautiful perfectly fits the bill here. When Lady Gaga appeared on Ellen, she explained her song ‘Marry The Night’ as the negativity you’ve had that is a part of you and made you who you are today. She was so eloquent, when she said people should not deny it as a part of who they are.

We are. We are our successes but we are also our failures. Acknowledging the bad, helps stabilize us in our perception, in our psyche, in our lives. Think & be positive, absolutely, but know it’s been the same you who went through your suffering. The discarded self, and there’s now no re-incarnated persona. We acknowledge our darkness. And that’s OK because Jesus saves. In the end, he will!

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” 

Jesus Christ, Matthew 11:28

 

Disclaimer: This article is for motivational purposes. I do not accept any liabilities that may arise on your part, for acting on it. And I include this disclaimer because a blogger who doesn’t take legalities seriously, is only a conviction waiting to happen.