What’s so wrong with being You?
Absolutely NOTHING but the question is do You know that? Do you accept that you have no choice but to be you? Because like Oscar Wilde said “everyone else is already taken”. Do you have an idea how to put Yourself in context to the kingdom? Where does your Christianity fit in your personality?
I hope this snippet helps with some of that contextualisation it’s from an article I came across online “Definitely “Be Yourself,” But Make Sure That’s the Best “You” You Can Be” by Mark D White.
“…the admonition to “be yourself” is not meant to enable denial of shortcomings that you can fix. If you’re rude, for instance, this is a character flaw that should be dealt with for the your sake and the sake of everyone around you, not just a potential love. Second, the self in “be yourself” does not include incidental or temporary characteristics, but elements of your core identity. Dr. Rettenberg brings up the example of unemployment, and highlights the absurdity of saying, “I’m unemployed, accept me as I am.”
“Being unemployed is hardly part of one’s essential self: at best it’s a symptom of the poor economy, and at worst it’s a reflection of poor character traits—and if the latter, then the person needs to work on those for himself or herself, before considered their effects on the love life. In general, “be yourself” means be true to your core identity rather than faking a different one because you think it will be attractive to others. But we can take it one step further and say that you should also try to the best “you” that you can be, being the ideal “yourself.” [Psychology Today]
Start worrying about how You treat the world
Our current situation in Zim is a major eye opener of who we are versus who we think we are or should be. The economy is in an all-time funk and the kind of solutions it needs lie in the very fabric of who we are right now. It is not a political or even spiritual problem that we face but an Identity problem. We refuse to accept our identity and take our place in the mess we have made fighting to be given equal opportunities with people who have a birth right to the wealth of their countries.
I’ve been one of those people who’ve complained bitterly about how there is so much red tape about moving over to South Africa or the rest of the world for that matter. I was in denial about my part in where we are now as a nation. Though I never victimised another person for their political affiliations or agreed with the concept of bribery for something as simple as a finger print form for police clearance, I especially disagree with this ridiculousness about arresting the devil and I can’t understand why so many of us fell for the grass is greener story rather than borrow ideas abroad on how to water our own.
When I think about it this exact scenario isn’t even just restricted to our macro-environment it appears even in our micro-environment with our kids, our families, our boss, our friends and our estranged lovers. I don’t know if its fear or lack of foresight but we have mastered the art of cutting our losses and moving on because hatinzwarwo. Sucking it up and fighting to the death are qualities that seem to have died on the noose with our liberating fore fathers they had a dream and they paid the price for that dream for us. Somewhere between their last breath and our born free lives we lost track of our value as youthies (LOL I had to..). We look at Christ’s sacrifice for us and because of our inferiority complex we can’t accept the gift and the grace to live better lives.
Some of us excuse our behaviour externalising the problem onto the current governance among other things that are apparently too hot to handle and as such leave us with the 3rd degree burns of complacency. I want to challenge someone today to STOP worrying about how the situation has been treating you and start worrying about how you have been treating it. I really enjoy watching Bishop T.D Jakes’ sermons because that guy leaves himself on the pulpit every Sunday.
He’s always emphasizing our responsibility to focus on how we treat other people in our lives rather than focus on how they treat us and the results from that always inspire other people to treat us better. I’m going to risk sounding political here and say that for all those people who pray for their partner or people in their lives to change are actually answered not by the other people changing but in them changing themselves sufficiently to redefine the relationship.
Can you imagine producing fruit from the same relationships that caused an element of death in your life simply by changing your attitude towards the situation. In our Zim case what if we stopped packing our bags to leave the husband who promised us the world but failed just like any other human being would if our hands were folded expecting to be taken care of. It’s almost like we relinquished our own birth right for the comfort of ex-Jap cars and pre-loved clothes so that we could exhaust our medical aid cover halfway through the year from stress related illnesses because we are still in denial about where to point the finger for change.
I’m not a political activist but I am a Human Activist actively speaking up for humanization in the world around me so that we can enjoy our identity for this brief gust of life we have. It’s already so short so why be miserable in it?
Oh there’s plenty more in this remix issue of YOU Magazine…
