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  • You will, or else…

    You will, or else…

    If it is true that the path to hell is paved with good intentions, then it confirms that good intentions are not enough to create positive outcomes.

    If we raise children with the fear of negative consequences, they’ll never truly connect with the benefit of doing what’s right.

    When that fear barrier is broken, and it will be broken at some point, we lose our children to influences and social structures that offer them inclusion and acceptance, rather than fear and punishment.

    With ease of access to alternate value systems and cultural norms, fear and a demand for compliance is no longer sufficient to influence children towards doing good or being good.

    Methods of escape in the form of substance abuse, pornography, demeaning and abusive social media trends, and more are accessible by toddlers, let alone teens or adults.

    The only sustainable approach towards combating such harmful influences is not through the fear of hell fire, or the threat of punishment,it’s through the establishment of a healthy self-esteem.

    A healthy self-esteem is built on how emotionally available their parents are.

    But parents can’t give what they don’t have.

    That is, if the parent doesn’t have a healthy self-esteem, they will rely on compliance and obedience to measure their worth with their children, failing which they will resort to being more controlling and intolerant towards bad behaviour.

    Given the norms of intolerance and compliance that set the tone for many of today’s adults, connecting meaningfully with our children has become a struggle that many are not even aware of as we interpret the behaviour of the youth as willful disobedience, rather than as a desperation to feel significant.

    If we can’t connect the youth with the value of the value system that we want to instill in them, they will connect with value systems that stroke their need for inclusion and understanding.

  • You judge others as you judge yourself

    You judge others as you judge yourself

    Judgement is easy.

    Understanding, empathy, compassion…not so easy.

    It only gets easier when we are capable of treating ourselves with kindness.

    But that isn’t as easy as it sounds.

    In fact, many of our efforts at kindness are harmful because we’re distracted from recognising what prompts our deliberate acts of kindness. Towards ourselves, and towards others.

    The moment anything is done deliberately and isn’t a natural consequence of our value system instinctively driving our behaviour, the risk of it being self-serving is very high.

    It’s like doing the right thing because it’s expected of you, rather than because you believe it’s the right thing to do.

    The moment no one expects you to do it, you have no reason to continue doing it.

    The same with empathy, compassion, and understanding.

    If we do it because we would want someone to do it for us if we were in their position, then it’s self-serving.

    When we have no reason to expect anyone to treat us in such gentle ways, we’ll easily stop treating others well as part of our protest against the world that is seemingly treating us badly.

    That’s when judgement becomes easy.

    The more aggressive or blatant we are about how we judge others, the more desperately it reflects our need for our struggle to be appreciated by others.

    You are responsible for your self-worth.

    The moment it is dependent on how others treat you, it’s not self-worth.

    You cannot give what you don’t have.

    That’s why you can only give what you have.

    Your unwarranted judgement of others reveals how harshly you judge yourself.

    Own it. And you may just be able to own your life.

  • Do you truly respect yourself?

    Do you truly respect yourself?

    One of the most important questions you could ever ask yourself in any situation is, ‘Who do you want to be?’

    Life is quickly defined or tainted by who we think others deserve us to be.

    We start out believing, often with good reason, that we need to be a certain way so that we don’t enable or encourage others to treat us badly, or to take us for granted.

    That’s when we lose ourselves to the assumptions of what we think others think of us, and along with it we lose our self-respect.

    Self-respect must be measured in the same way as what we use to determine if we are respected by others.

    If someone treats us in a way that lacks consideration for who we are, if they break their promises to us, if they lie or avoid accountability for what they do to us, or how they affect us, we feel disrespected by them.

    Why then do we not feel as if we’re disrespecting ourselves when we treat ourselves in similar or worse ways?

    It’s easy to blame others for our reaction of for not following through on commitments that we make to ourselves.

    But we need to realise that when we do that, we’re effectively giving up who we are for how we need them to treat us.

    That’s what happens when we assume that how others treat us is a reflection of who we are, rather than it being a reflection of what they’re dealing with within themselves.

    That’s how life gets complicated, and withholding who we are begins to appear as a needed defence against being treated badly.

    Before you go demanding respect from others, consider what it means for your self-respect if you believe that demanding respect is an effective way to be respected.

    When you demand respect, you only receive good manners or compliance. Not respect.

    Because the one who is disrespectful is only giving what they have.

    Have you got enough self-respect to treat others with respect regardless of whether they deserve it, or have you traded your self-respect for anger and self-loathing without realising it?

  • Own your own life first

    Own your own life first

    The causes that we’re afraid to fight in our own lives, we fight through proxy in someone else’s life.

    When we lack the conviction to apply ourselves to full effect in our own lives, we pacify our conscience by coming to the aid of those whose struggles offer an opportunity for us to find significance in ways that are lacking in our own lives.

    Our efforts may appear noble or sincere, and we may even believe that we’re pursuing a noble or sincere cause, but nobility or sincerity cannot be measured in the absence of authenticity.

    Authenticity demands that we conduct ourselves in our own lives consistent with how we conduct ourselves in the lives of others.

    When such consistency is lacking, authenticity is eroded, and our insecurities grow to define our sense of justice and righteousness.

    Thus, the victim mindset causes new problems while believing that we’re solving existing ones.

    Any problem left unresolved only grows in complexity and intensity, slowly festering until it becomes intolerable or unavoidable.

    At that point, it overwhelms us to the point of hopelessness, giving way to depression, anxiety, and unexplainable fatigue, including chronic illness.

    The victim mindset causes more problems than the problems it solves.

    It undermines our credibility, while diminishing the significance of those around us.

    When we lack the courage to meaningfully tackle the problems in our own lives, we lack the self-worth to hold ourselves accountable for what we claim to stand for.

    It always starts with what we think about ourselves long before we formulate any opinions of what we think of others.

    Reflect and connect with the resolve that you have for taking action in your own life before you set out to change the world for others.

    If there is a difference in how you show up between those two domains of life, you have a crisis of authenticity about who you are.

    It always starts with you.

  • Trading in human suffering

    Trading in human suffering

    When we set out to give someone a voice or to create a platform for them, we create a crutch for them.

    Just like our voice is ours to claim, so is theirs.

    When we slip into silence, usually from self-pity, we allow others to speak on our behalf, and then complain if they don’t do justice to our plight or if they abandon our cause, creating room for more self-pity.

    Empowerment should not be a cliché that creates an opportunity for us to shine as beacons of hope for others.

    Empowering or uplifting others is an act of charity, and charity is not supposed to benefit its giver because then it becomes a business transaction.

    Charity is also supposed to be done so secretly that your left hand should not know what your right hand is doing.

    Not because of the importance of secrecy, but to protect the dignity of the beneficiary of your charity, and to protect your intentions from being tarnished by trading with someone’s dignity to improve your social standing.

    More than all this, when someone is given something as opposed to being enabled to create it for themselves, they develop a sense of entitlement to receive what is being given and have no reason to connect with the innate ability that they have to create.

    This denies them the sense of fulfilment and accomplishment which is critical towards establishing self-esteem and should subsequently allow them to claim their dignity.

    A bleeding heart isn’t always a generous one.

    Most often, it’s a selfish one with good intentions.

    Be mindful of the consequences of your good actions that may be intended to uplift while creating reliance and disempowerment instead.

    And for this reason, please don’t use the pitiful state of the weak and destitute as marketing collateral to raise money to supposedly restore their dignity.

    That is the most horrible contradiction of them all.


  • A distracted populace

    A distracted populace

    When popular opinion prevails over the wisdom of the ages, fear greatly for the next generation.

    We live in times when good appears as evil, and evil appears as good.

    When standing up for something on a basis of principle is dismissed as idealism, and the path of least resistance is seen as the only sensible thing to do.

    When respect is confused with good manners, and sincerity is confused with being polite.

    When the worst of us leads, and the best of us are ridiculed for expecting more.

    When we look to the past with rose coloured spectacles, we lose the essence of the effort that created that past, while believing that nostalgia is all that it offers.

    When we surrender to the thinking that times have changed, we lose sight of the fact that we’re changing the times.

    That’s how the feeble-minded gain popularity through stroking the egos of the masses, while the masses are deluded by their social media feeds into believing that they’re being progressive.

    And in the midst of all this ridiculousness, we have a generation that is lost, yet horribly confident about everything that is lacking in substance but full of self-gratification.

    It is going to be a disastrous day when they realise that self-gratification was in fact a coping mechanism for self-loathing, and life grew empty as they lost their connection with their roots, their cultural heritage, and their identity.

    Assimilation has never fed the soul, it only ever destroyed our sense of self.

    A society that demands assimilation is a society that is doomed to failure because it already lacks the substance and the credibility to deal with differences.

    The future cries in anticipation of what we’re producing in the present.

    When will we awaken from being so woke?

  • Your rage, your loss

    Your rage, your loss

    If left unchecked, rage eventually clouds our judgement as we seek vengeance from anyone who reminds us of those who treated us badly in the past.

    When you find a reason to rage at every assumed threat, peace becomes elusive and bitterness takes over.

    Feeling enraged may be human, but acting on that rage is a choice.

    Sometimes we get so caught up in our anger at the world that we lose sight of the fact that our anger feeds the very same cycles that we’ve grown to despise.

    No one makes you angry.

    Anger is your choice of response to someone else’s behaviour because of what they mean to you, or because of what their actions trigger within you, or both.

    And that’s because of what you want to mean to them, but are failing at achieving it.

    So your anger is your demand for significance when who you are is insufficient to achieve that significance.

    Your anger and your triggers are your responsibility.

    Making the world responsible for your emotional response to life gives everyone the power to control your behaviour.

    If you can influence a positive change in how someone treats you, do it.

    If not, walk away.

    Insisting on rage after you’ve realised that you are unable to influence positive change is an indulgence of your ego and not a righteous protest.

    Choose carefully who you want to be when someone treats you badly, or else you’ll lose yourself to become just like those whom you despise for treating you badly because your rage will cause you to become a source of oppression against those who have nothing to do with your feelings of inadequacy.

    Don’t get angry.

    It’s not worth it.

  • A destined misery…or is it?

    A destined misery…or is it?

    Are you sightseeing while wishing that what you see could be your reality?

    Most often, it is our belief in what we deserve that limits us more than what we actually deserve or are capable of achieving.

    In fact, considering what we deserve or don’t deserve is a distraction most likely grounded in self-pity or entitlement, neither of which changes reality.

    Couple that with resigning your fate to destiny and you have a recipe for misery.

    It’s like waiting up all night to witness an amazing sunrise only to give up as the first streaks of dawn appear, followed by convincing ourselves that it was our destiny not to see the sunrise.

    No. Destiny is the sum total of the choices that you make with the opportunities that present themselves to you.

    If you’re too distracted to notice those opportunities, or lack the courage to embrace it, that’s your choice, not destiny.

    The only thing that can reasonably be blamed on destiny is the consequences that affect us of the bad decisions that others make.

    Likewise, they are confronted with the fateful outcomes of our poor decisions, or our inaction to improve things.

    How we respond to that which is out of our control is a reflection of who we are and what we value about life.

    Don’t settle for less and then blame the world for not treating you fairly, or for not allowing you to have the life that you want.

    You only accept or pursue that which you believe you deserve, or that which is safe for you to pursue when you’re distracted by what others think of you.

    That’s why most of us settle for the dawn because we believe that we’re undeserving of the majestic sunrise.

    It always starts with you.

    Not with destiny.