Running helter skelter.....

photo credit: blisstree.com

Before I dive into deciphering the above heading, I heard something earlier today that has got me a little confused and worried. I was listening to a feel-good Nigerian song a while ago and kept nodding my head until I heard Timaya the artist make a shocking statement: ‘I travel go America just to go charge my phone’. I still haven’t recovered from the shock as to why the artist made that statement. Who goes to America just to go charge their phone? Anyway that’s a story for another day.

Let’s get back on track. I didn’t quite realize the power in the phrase ‘you can achieve whatever you put your mind to’ until recently.

I had just finished an assignment for a course and was ready to submit. It was quite tough completing that assignment, as I was distracted by other projects I work on concurrently. Luckily for me I finished the race and was ready to submit on the deadline day! It was a cool Sunday morning, and as I raced to submit, I discovered a few errors. I was quick to correct them on my laptop and then only just needed to reprint those pages and submit. Simple.

I called up my friend who lived within that area to know if I could print at his place & he said yes (and even bragged about his printer), and that all he needed to do was to top up his generator. So we sprinted to the nearest gas station, got fuel, headed back to his home, switched on the generator and was ready to print. He pulled out his state of the art printer and voila! – There was no ink in the printer. I was heartbroken, disappointed, confused & speechless. I have the best printer he said; it was just going take a few minutes he said.

I recovered quickly from that & we set out again, scanned the entire area looking for where we could print a document but couldn’t find any. He kept calling his friends around but none could help. Another friend of his, an entrepreneur who runs his business out of his home had a printer but was unreachable for hours. Eventually we got through to him and drove straight to his home. He served us drinks, took us into his fashion-forward office, took my flash drive and was ready to print. Boy his printer looked so amazing; must have been a very recent version.

In seconds, he was able to print. And I had my 4 copies of printed pages warm in my hands. I was super excited – not until I took a closer look and saw that I had plain sheets in my hands; he had run out of ink too – I fainted. Well I didn’t exactly faint but I felt like the world was against me.

My desperation heightened as we tried several other places including a church, all without success. Long story short, I eventually found a way around it and was able to print out my sheets (wipes sweat) and submit the assignment.

I was amazed at the options I explored within minutes, the moment I knew I had no other option but to solve that problem and meet up with my deadline.

I’m not quite sure, but I also think I lost weight that day.

After submitting the assignment, Earl Nightingale’s words breezed through my mind ‘don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.’

The existence of truly unfettered and unwavering belief that we can achieve anything we want in life is a fundamental tenet to fulfilling our deepest desires and dreams. Belief, faith, or the unconscionable knowledge that we’re designed to attain or achieve something, is one of the most crucial determining factors in our ability to do so.

But how often do we really have sheer and utter belief and faith in our abilities? How often do we say, “I know I can. And I will,” as opposed to, “I hope I can. And I might.”

More times than not, we doubt ourselves. We live in a state of constant fear, anxiety, stress, and worry, fretting and overthinking every little thing that we do, wondering if it will ever be good enough to achieve something, even under pressure. Needless to say, this is a far more common occurrence in our lives than harbouring sheer and complete belief in ourselves.

So, if you want to achieve anything you want, how about you hold powerful sway over that extremely complex bundle of tissue and matter in your head, and that construct that resides within it — your mind?

Life can be tough sometimes but we need to learn to not give up and accept and embrace our situation – Even if it involves running helter-skelter!