God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Many psychologists believe that one of the reasons why people only utilise up to 14% of their potential is that they are never happy with themselves, have low level of self acceptance.
Self acceptance, according to Dr Van Jaarsveld Pieter, is not an event. It is a lifelong process. The way we feel about ourselves will affect our feelings and our behaviour in general.
Maslow, a psychologist, said we should "look at ourselves and try to identify our strengths. We all have certain deficiencies as well, some of which we can do nothing about, particularly if they are physical weaknesses."
A Dutch psychologist, Wijngaarden, mentioned "active and passive acceptance" where he recommended that we learn to accept the things we cannot change and focus on doing something positive about the things we can change.
It is of utmost importance that we accept ourselves as being unique individuals with our own specific strengths. If we continually compare ourselves with other people or try to imitate them, we will become psychologically sick. People can inspire us, and we can try to adopt some of their traits, but we should never try to be like somebody else.
Look inside of yourself. What are your strengths and what are your weaknesses? Thank God for your strengths and work to develop them. Can you change your deficiencies? If yes, go right ahead and change them. Be realistic. If no, why die over it when you have many more untapped positive potentials? Focus on what you have power over and ignore what will make you sick in the mind. You will be just fine with the positive.
Many of us are aware of our failures and negative things in our lives that we tend to forget the success and positive things. In our bid to perfect our failures, the success slip out of our hands and the positives are silently and effectively subdued by the negative. We develop anger, envy, desperation, and ruin our peace of mind. At the extreme, we become physically violent and soon embrace extreme, destructive path.
Some psychologists noted that when people are made to write down their strengths, they often have difficulties to do so. But are always quick to write down their weaknesses and failures. This, to me, is a testimony to how much destruction our obsession with our weaknesses have wrecked in our minds. Also, people who paid more attention to their success and strength tends to experience more success while those who paid more attention to their failures tends to be emotionally unstable and it often affect them as in individual.
As you start the week, remind yourself of all the good and positive things about yourself and your people. Thank God for the good and change the bad if you can. If you can't, move on and concentrate on the things you can change and the things you can improve upon. God will forgive your weaknesses and sins, but your body won't forgive you if you allow your emotion to become a wild forest, where every species of thorn of life domicile. You will pay dearly for it in full measure, emotional instability, sickness, nightmares, stress etc.
As Reinhold Niebuhr put it:
"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen. "
Enjoy your weekend.
No comments: