BEWARE OF THESE THREE (3) THINGS AS YOU BEGIN 2019

What would you say, how would you feel, and what would you do, about not being able to spend Christmas and the beginning of a New Year with your dear family and/or friend(s)? I know most certainly I would get zillion varied answers to these questions. Well for the first time after thirteen years, my wife reminded me early this morning, the 1^st of January 2019 that we are spending this day apart from each other. It is our first-time vapid experience of the day we have otherwise advertently enjoyed together! Circumstances have robbed us of a lot, and I assure you it is neither by deliberate nor imprudent choice. It would not be a fallacy to guess, or better still judiciously say that you have already responded to some or all of that. 

Familiarly, in my response to my wife’s exposure of the present reality, it was literally like being wakened up to acknowledge the staring, lonely, and incising fact.

Time must have stood still such that it was a quick learning moment for me. With empathy I asked her to write down what and how she felt about it. She immediately said, ‘Baibe you are the creative one.’ My persuasion didn’t work right away. But that humbled me as much as it gave me the strength, courage, and pleasure to promptly think about and write on three things that you should beware of as you begin the year 2019. This experience is very peculiar for us and I would not miss it for anything else that I could ever contemplate writing at this moment. So three concerns were shortly spawned in my mind and are a challenge even to me. Beware of your thoughts, beware of your emotions, and beware of your actions going forward. Essential soul-searching and poking questions are asked under all three points for self-awareness and smoothing of some rough ages. So you need not be intimidated but be strong and focused because one of the terrible and unfortunate things is to let emotions unconsciously cloud or invade intellect and ride on it and cause you to make wrong or bad decision(s) in spite of right knowledge.

Beware of Your Thoughts

What are your thoughts about where you are in life, in your job or business, relationships; when you think about your health, family, and friends? This reminds me of a new song, by one of most creative and talented musicians in our country, in which he asks God to change him his friends. What comes to your mind when you think about the future – where do you go from here? Are there any things or habits you need to change or new and better things or habits you need to embrace? What are your thoughts about money and the needs you have; thoughts about your roles, responsibilities and duties to your family, friends, neighbourhood, employer, country and humanity? What about your thoughts on success failure, good, evil or morality, or just what matters or is real in life? What do you think about what other think, say and feel about you? And lastly but not conclusive, what do you think about the end of your life and God? 

Hoping that you may already have asked yourself what the point of all this is, I will ask a question that I’m pretty sure puts things into perspective. On what will you spend your mental energy and acumen going forward every moment and day of the year 2019? Thinking about the past and immediate or distant future can sometimes be very draining, discouraging, and limiting if we don’t do it properly, but it could also prove the opposite – energising, inspiring and freeing – if we do it properly with patience, hope and trust. “To live too long in memory, and to over-dwell upon that which is past, may actually work against us — if it is not balanced with the rapture of the forward view” wrote James Ryle. That balance is done in the present. Though the present is very transient and delicate it is what issues out of the past into our tomorrow.

Unfortunately, this irresistibly and unwaveringly calls endlessly for our present decisive action, good or bad, the shrewd combination of our thoughts and emotions! The problem mostly is that we seldom thoughtfully consider the inestimable gravity of the consequences. Friends, this thought has made me shudder in manner I have not done in a very long time! Indeed truly living life itself commands certain awe. One must not be too carefree about it except if demented. So beware of your thoughts presently about the past and future. It is said that the past has a bearing on the future; that you cannot change the past but you can write a different history and you can shape the future only presently. Choose ye therefore what you dwell or focus on thought-wise.

Beware of Your Emotions

How do you feel about the past – what happened to you or didn’t happen which perhaps you hoped would; about your misfortune, or what someone did to you or didn’t do for you; about lost opportunities; about your failure, stagnation, and disappointment, and the success and progress of your friends or keen? How do you feel about what others feel or think about you? How do you feel about the lie(s) you have told, promises you didn’t keep, the instructions or advice you went against and things turned out disastrous? How do you really feel about the other people around you, about the state of affairs in your organisation, in the community or country? If I can push it, how do you even feel about yourself and what you have overall – your talents/gift(s), the strength(s) or weakness or deformity which maybe someone talks about, or your possessions, education, relationship(s)? How do you feel about who and where you are or what you do and/or what you have become or not become? 

Discover and know yourself. “The man who has no opinion of himself at all can never be hurt if others do not acknowledge him” is the wise counsel from Henry Drummond. So how do you feel about what you believe in and what you stand for? There is an unalterable and extremely delicate nexus or link between your emotions and your thoughts. Thought and emotion must therefore be exercised cautiously and yet audaciously. The power of emotions or feelings linked with your thoughts must never be underestimated as they are a definite driver of your actions. Emotions are important because they help steer or stay us like a watercourse or floodgate. Beware which emotions you let out as some are so powerful that it becomes difficult to think clearly, speak and act rightly, or to control the outcomes, which sometimes may be irreversible or irreparable.

Beware of Your Actions

Assuming that you know yourself very well, how do you react practically when you are wronged, offended or injured accidentally or intentionally; when you lose or find, gain or get something, perhaps unexpectedly? What do you do when you are frustrated by failure or a problem; let’s say with your car or equipment, your boss or organisation or learning institution, your husband or wife, a child, friend, pet or customer? It is obvious that your action or response would be driven by your thinking and emotion(s.) It is the same if you were to hit sudden success. How do you interact with other people and the environment around? Do you have the will and stamina to persevere amidst adversity and how do you handle uncertainty? What do you like doing and how do you spend time when no one is looking or when you are all alone? These questions are very vital and I hope they make you peep into the arena of your actions and assist in how you may start living better and what purpose you will be serving henceforth.

The character and values of an individual are demonstrated in what they do and how they do things, known and seen by other people. ‘Wisdom is justified by her deeds,’ said Jesus Christ in Matthew 11:19. Beware of your actions/deeds that spring from your emotions and thoughts. These are inseparably interlinked and do matter in a person’s life. Currently, how do your actions count for tomorrow and how do they affect others presently? Hoping this has enabled you to take stock, contemplate and move forward with a changed perspective and persona. For me, slowly closing out the world as the year had been pacing to an end was so that I could do some reflection and exercise foresight. Just slightly after 10pm or 22:00 I had successfully shut out the world and the year 2018 in spite of the cracking noisy fireworks and teenagers who were being a nuisance right outside my apartment. I didn’t count or witnessed its coming but I am grateful to God that I’m in 2019.

Be careful of your thoughts, for your thoughts become your words.

Be careful of your words, for your words become your deeds.

Be careful of your deeds, for deeds become your habits.

Be careful of your of your habits, for your habits become your character.

Be careful of your of your character, for your becomes your destiny.

To this sage advice, leading leadership scholars and authors James Kouzes and Barry Posner give another pearl of wisdom for those who are leaders or aspire to be:

Be careful of your leadership, for your leadership becomes your legacy.

“Read these six simple lines at the start of every day.” 

Enjoy the new year