Life is a process; it’s not lived in an instant. Don’t be in a hurry to grab everything all at once because you may end up being sorry for your actions later. The Caterpillars must go through four stages before their metamorphosis is complete. They begin as eggs, next they hatch as caterpillars, then they go through a stage where they eat, and eat, and eat some more. Eventually, they become a chrysalis before the transformation is complete and they can finally emerge as a beautiful butterfly. “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.” Often, we want to walk straight into the calling God has for us. We want to do and be everything God wants us to be and not only that, but we want to skip the journey that takes us there and do it NOW! We want to go from being caterpillar eggs to butterflies! However, we all know that there are risks to anything being born prematurely. In order for anything to be birthed, whether it is a vision or a calling, we who are to fulfill it must go on a journey.
Gbenga Owotoki
Statistic
Archive for Personal Development
Two brothers were convicted of stealing sheep. For their crime they were each branded on the forehead with the letters “ST,” for “sheep thief.” One brother immediately ran away from the area and attempted to build a new life in another country. Even there, people asked him about the “ST” burned into his forehead. He continued his wanderings and finally, unable to bear the burden, he committed suicide. The other brother took a different approach. He said to himself, “I can’t run away from the fact that I stole sheep. But that’s the past. I can stay here and win back my self-respect and the respect of my neighbors.” The years passed and he built a reputation for integrity. One day a stranger saw the brother, now an old man, with the letters “ST” branded on his forehead. He asked a resident of the town what the letters stood for. The townsman replied, “It happened a long time ago. I’ve forgotten the particulars, but I think the …letters are an abbreviation for Saint.”
A boy told his father, “Dad, if three frogs were sitting on a limb that hung over a pool, and one frog decided to jump off into the pool, how many frogs would be left on the limb?” The dad replied, “Two.” “No,” the son replied. “There are three frogs and one decides to jump, how many are left?” … The dad said, “Oh, I get it, if one decides to jump, the others would too. So there are none left.” The boy said, “No dad, the answer is three. The frog only DECIDED to jump.”
I read a story about a peculiar fisherman from Minnesota. You see, this fisherman was very well prepared. He knew how to fish. He had everything you need to be a good fisherman. He had poles, nets, bait, and even a really nice boat, but this fisherman had a problem. You see, for all his preparation he never caught anything. Not one fish. Not one, not ever. And you know why he never caught a fish? What do you think? The answers easy: He never went fishing. He had all the knowledge and all the equipment, but he never got into the boat, he never left the dock.
A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups – porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite – telling them to help themselves to the coffee. When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: “If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the… cup, but you consciously went for the best cups… And then you began eyeing each other’s cups.
A little girl walking in a garden noticed a particularly beautiful flower. She admired its beauty and enjoyed its fragrance. “It’s so pretty!” she exclaimed. As she gazed on it, her eyes followed the stem down to the soil in which it grew. “This flower is too pretty to be planted in such dirt!” she cried. So she pulled it up by its roots and ran to the water faucet to wash away the soil. It wasn’t long until the flower wilted and died. When the gardener saw what the little girl had done, he exclaimed, “You have destroyed my finest plant!” “I’m sorry, but I didn’t like it in that dirt,” she said. The gardener replied, “I chose that spot and mixed the soil because I knew that only there could it grow to be a beautiful flower.”
We will continue our series on ways by which we can improve our personal life. I belief this is a series that will change your life if you stick to the principles highlighted. Everybody has got the right to be the best God wants for him/her but you have a role to play. Don’t neglect this.
Do you have the ability to accept the things you can change and the things you cannot change? Do you have the ability to accept that other people could change them, rather than you changing them? Do you accept that you are who you are, regardless of what others think? Can you accept the many changes that take place in your life?
Tension is an inhibitor. It slows you down and may stop you in your track as you pursue your dreams. We are daily confronted with a lot of stressors both internal and external. Tension may not be completely eliminated but they can be reduced to the barest minimums. Consider the following ways of reducing Tension.
1. Identify the real cause of stress.
2. Should not give immediate response to stressful event; always take little time to think.
3. Need not bother about your loss, but find out the reason for it and try to solve it.
“If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life.” Marcus Garvey
Lack of confidence can negatively affects a person’s chances of becoming successful in life. When you are not confident of your ability, you may never have the opportunity to discover how great you can become. Confidence is the feeling that you can do a particular thing if given the opportunity. Self confidence is not pride but if not well managed may result in pride. Your achieving great feat in life is not meant for you to become a smug, rather you should see it as a humbling experience and something to learn from. But today, our focus will be how we can boost our confidence level. Building confidence does not come by accident, it takes deliberate effort to build yourself into someone that others will respect and appreciate. Take a look at the following points.