There were events that happened in my life and I felt very foolish, in those times, I literally felt like I had no sense at all but here is me, the same person people mention that gives them a glimmer of hope, inspire them to do great things and achieve greater results with their lives. Does it actually mean that I'm a foolish being? Of course not. The fact that I felt foolish does not mean that I was actually foolish. Foolishness was just a FEELING, not my PERSONALITY.
There were times I really felt like I wasn't brilliant enough or smart enough like my friends who actually did better than I ever did.
For example, during my degree program some years ago, I failed a particular course and it really made me feel like I wasn't intelligent like some of my classmates but guess what; later on, I rewrote the course and I had the best result in that course ever. What if I hadn't rewritten the course and had given up?
Probably I would still have this feeling that I wasn't intelligent but was that truly the case? No, I felt unintelligent but in actual sense I actually am. Again, I've had several moments of brilliance in my life. Yet again, that was my feeling at work, not my true personality.
Most times, You think you are broke simply because you have no cash in your pocket and there's no money in your account currently and you're struggling to eat just one meal per day but hey! Have you for once thought about all the times you paid rent, school fees, bought one or two expensive things, rendered financial assistance to others and did numerous stuffs for yourself? Have you tried to compare yourself between years of when you had enough and just these few periods you don't have? What's the ratio? Having compared both, would you still call yourself broke and poor?
You made just one mistake (or even if it's more than one), and you start thinking and believing that it's way out of the line and you'll recover from it. Relax friend! Show me a man who has never ever made a mistake, be it costly or not and I'll show you a man who has never made any meaningful impact in his lifetime.
Again I say to you, that's your feelings and emotions playing with you. Instead, let your sense of reasoning and profound judgement take a course of action and try as much as possible to learn from that mistake. That mistake can birth series of structured, carefully thought-out and planned-out actions that would lead you to unimaginable heights in future and you'll be glad and forever grateful to God that you made that mistake today.
Now, this is the peak of this write-up and the reason I shared the illustrations above with you;
We've had individual moments where we have failed or felt we totally performed below standard. Individual moments where we have even made costly mistakes but compared to those, if you do a careful analysis, you would see that the times you have done well and even surpassed your expectations are far more than the times that you've failed.
But why then do we rely on our feelings and let them rule over us? As humans, we are emotional beings who think sometimes and not thinking beings who sometimes have emotions and as such, it's almost natural and default to judge our entire life BASED ON OUR POOR AND LOW PERFORMANCES OCCASSIONALLY rather than our BEST AND EXCELLENT PERFORMANCES CONTINUALLY.
So this is me saying to you, the next time your feelings try to pull a smart one on you, telling you that you're unworthy, how much of a failure you've been and how your whole existence amounts to nothing, BE DELIBERATE AND INTENTIONAL ABOUT USING YOUR MIND TO COUNTERACT IT AND COUNT ALL THE MANY TIMES YOU HAVE MADE EXCELLENT DECISIONS, TOUCHED LIVES AND SUCCEEDED.
This wil definitely lead you out of depression and suicidal thoughts (I do not know why I'm adding this line but I guess it's for someone).
Your being intentional and deliberate about recalling and telling yourself OVER AND OVER AGAIN how good, smart and hardworking you are as an individual will definitely make you WIN.
I remain your favourite writer, Blackdovy.