BE(LIEVE) (IN) YOU(RSELF)

“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me”…Jim Valvano.(1967-1993) American College Basket Ball Player, Coach and Broadcaster 

Your Self Concept!

Trust me on this one; I’m not trying to be all-grammatical here in as much as our complicated minds have inadvertently chosen to be blind to the beauty and simplicity of the world we live in.

Glad with that being let off my chest, shall we now move on to more pressing issues of life?

‘Self-concept basically describes the individual’s belief about himself or herself, including the person’s attributes and who and what the self is’.

Self Concept is an important term for both social psychology and humanism, which is essentially a mental picture of who you are as a person.

For instance, apparent beliefs like “I am a good friend” or “I am a nice person” are part of an overall self-concept.

Humanist psychologist, Carl Rogers believed that there are three different parts of self-concept.

1.           Self-image, or how you see yourself, this doesn’t necessarily coincide with reality. People might have an inflated self-image and believe they are better at things than they truly are.

2.           Self-esteem, or how much you value yourself. This includes how you compare yourself to others and also how they respond to you. We are likely to have positive self-esteem when people treat us well.

3.           Ideal self, or how you wish you could be. In many cases, the way we see ourselves and how we would like to see ourselves do not quite match up.

The point here is that a school of thought portends that we are a product of our environment, with our environment being apparently subjective and by implication relative, meaning we can choose to embark upon the sacred journey of self discovery in order to know who we really are, and then recreate ourselves as well as our environment, but it takes a huge degree of self belief, initiative and virtue.

“Don’t pretend to be what you’re not, instead, pretend to be what you want to be, it is not pretence, it is a journey to self realization. ”…Michael Bassey Johnson. Authour, Journalist, Novelist, Poet

The Originals!

What would you do if you were on a plane and the pilot announces that he’s not actually the pilot, rather he’s just learning to fly? Or imagine you were in the hospital theatre about to have a surgery, and the supposed doctor tells you this is his first time? I bet your guess is as good as mine; we want the best guy to do our jobs, it’s all or nothing.

Another school of thought tells us that we are the best versions of ourselves, so why then do we try so hard to be like other people?

I heard a speech from an intellectually sound personality a while ago, and he simply said Africa is not a part of the universal plan for the future. I didn’t quite understand the statement until he opened my eyes further by asking: What are Africa’s short and long term plans? What does Africa produce from her own original ideas asides mineral resources which she only seemed to stumble upon and still mismanage?

Africans live and rely on copying the western world, making it evident that we are not just still dependent, but that we still abound in slavery, only modern and systematically feigned.

Think about it, what legacies are we leaving for our children and what future are they looking forward to? We copy western religion, habits and lifestyle whether good or bad, and perhaps unwittingly downplay our rich cultures, values and heart, consequently we linger on in poverty both physically and of the mind.

Take time out to study the westerners, they plan every move like a pride of lions in the animal kingdom. They amass knowledge, customs and wealth, and then carefully pass it down to the next generation.

Africans simply squander any wealth that comes by on the luxury things that the westerners make to glitter before our very eyes, understanding our lust for vanity and temporary material possession, making us less financially intelligent.

If we do not strive to be the original versions of ourselves, then it is grossly inevitable that we might as well wither away like smoke.

“The more you believe in yourself, the more you could trust yourself. The more you trust yourself, the less you compare yourself to others.”…Roy T. Bennet. (1918-1988) American Authour

Faith!

 

It is scientifically proven that if your loved one is present at your public performance of any kind such as music, Stand-up, sports etc., you are more likely to impress the audience than if you were there alone, why? This is because your loved one has simply demonstrated that he / she believes in you just by being present.

This singular act of love, care and faith in you will make you strive to do well, thus you would most likely surpass your own expectation.

We Africans fail in leadership because we have failed to plan, genuinely work hard, uphold integrity, and have faith in ourselves.

We see ourselves as insecure and inferior, so we idolize our light skinned counterparts from the western world, and they have smartly taken advantage of this.

We sing their songs, not that it’s a bad thing, but we have failed to sing ours. We bleach our skins and curl our hair just to look like them, forgetting how beautiful we are.

We tattoo our bodies and pierce our skins exposing ourselves to cancer. We justify removal of morals from schools and perform homosexuality, robbing our kids of sound mind and confusing them and their futures about how homes should be.

We export raw materials like cocoa cheaply, we then import the finished goods (Chocolate) that have been laced with harmful chemicals expensively, and they harm our population giving us diseases only the westerners can allegedly cure with expensive drugs that are also basically poisons.

We import every single thing that we can actually produce back here and even provide entrepreneurs, employment and confidence through self-esteem. 
We trade all this because of the toxic money a bunch of wicked guys will benefit at the expense of our lives, this is definitely terrorism and lack of patriotism, and we should know better for the sake of our common good, for the sake of our future.

We can’t be quiet; we have to create the spark that will spur the warriors within us to action.

We’ve got to have faith, even if it’s just a little, because our lives depend on it.

“Don’t feed your mind with negative thoughts. If you do, you will come to believe them”…Catherine Pulsifer. American Authour

Bewildered!

How does the world really work? Because I have this feeling that some people have it all figured out, thereby enslaving the rest of us.

This is not a mystery for Scooby doo and his crew to solve; rather, it’s a whole new perspective we need to discover and vigorously embrace.

We currently live in a world where corruption, greed, insensitivity, deceit, lust and insatiable want for money are at their record high.

The government is all up in your business, it’s a crime to spank your kids when they stray, there is huge hunger and insecurity, massive companies are all about the bottom line at the expense of our health and ultimately our lives, while the government simply smiles to the bank in the name of high taxes.

You really need to trust me on this one; I’m not trying to be all-grammatical here, but our minds have not only been complicated, we have been corrupted and bewildered to a possible point of no return, and sadly we’ve been blinded to the beautiful and simple things. 
One thing is for sure, it cannot keep being like this, and if we do not believe in ourselves now, surely, no one will, and that is like being dead, even while alive.

Thank you for reading.

Akin Abimbola. (akinzogee@yahoo.com, akinzogee@gmail.com)

Twitter: @akinzogee

Facebook: Critical Lyric by Akin Abimbola

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Sources: Brainy Quote, Good reads, Google, Very well, Wikipedia, Wow4u

This article is an original piece, reasonably researched and contains considerable opinion and a unique style of the author.

The names in actual stories are not real and the stories in this write-up are usually fictional, consequently, people’s names appearing are purely co-incidental, except for quotes and news that are typically referenced.