Tuesday, May 23, 2017
QUESTION THE IMPOSSIBLE
We limit ourselves in how far we can go with any initiative.
A race is lost not at the finishing line but at the beginning or even along the
way. It is an athlete who instead of concentrating on his abilities to win
starts thinking that his competitor has advantage that loses. The best football
strikers in the world are not the best because they have extraordinary legs to
dribble and score, they are the best because they conquer their mind. They
strongly believe they can score, they strongly believe they can dribble. No
wonder they fear no battalion of a forest of defenders in front of them. It is
the battle of the mind that matters most.
We confine ourselves to the tattered shreds of poverty
because some economies and people labeled us a poorest country on earth. They
won the battle of the mind, they made us believe we are too poor hence our
thinking ability is within the parameters of the poverty Berlin walls that we
built with our minds. In the end we cherish the status quo and never question
why should we be seen to be a people that have nothing to offer the world but
continued misery and being the eyesore in the conscious of humanity.
When he was young Mike Mlombwa walked on foot from Mwanza to
Blantyre in pursuit of his dream. He never feared the distance. He never feared
hyenas and other animals on the way. He conquered the mind. When Jimmy Koreia
Mpatsa lost his job, he survived on writing short stories. Dr. Thomson Mpinganjira
was denied a bank licence several times, he never gave up. If all these people
had lost the battle of the mind there could have been no Countrywide Car Hire,
no Mpatsa Holdings and no FDH Financial Holdings Limited. It is the mind, it is
the mind, the battle is fought, won or lost, in the mind. It is your fear that
stops you.
Ordinary people achieve extraordinary things because they
believe. Mahatma Gandhi, a common man, touched a billion hearts and became a
father of the Indian nation. It is said, think big, think fast. Think ahead,
Ideas are no one’s monopoly. James Cameron a truck driver created marvels. A
nurse inspired the idea of the ‘Red Cross.’ Mother Teresa of Calcutta, just a
mere nun, became a mother to all. Lance Armstrong, a cancer survivor, became a cycling
champion. Arthur Clarke was right; the only way to discover the limits of the
possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.
Win the battle of the mind. Question what people call the
impossible. Phelippe Petit walked between the Twin Towers of the World Trade
Centre in New York on the morning of August 7, 1974. Steve Jobs invented
Macintosh, Typography on screen, Mouse, iMac, iPod, ipad, iphone. Question what
people call impossible.
Les Brown gives us a good lesson. ‘It is necessary to know
that everybody want see your dream, that everybody won’t join you, that
everybody won’t have the vision …. You are an uncommon breed. You know, you have
to know within yourself. Believe that I can do this, even though no one else
may see it I must see it myself.’
There is no biggest battlefield in the world than the mind.
It is those that have strong belief in themselves and their capabilities to
achieve that will never be wiped off the face of the earth with the nuclear
weapons of humiliation, the tanks of self doubt and the rockets of being labeled
failures. The point is, we judge ourselves on the basis of the opinion of
others. But who told us that what others say is the gospel to us and that we
have to believe no matter the stereotypism. We are our own worst enemies.
Some believe that because we come from poor families then we
can never be rich. Others condemn generations
into the dungeon of academic failure all just because none in their
family had ever excelled in school. We do not believe in ourselves to the
extent that when someone does something exceptionally better we usually say
‘amene uja ndi mzungu,’ literally manifesting that only the azungus can do good
things.
We are failing to break the yoke of corruption because in
our minds we believe we are too corrupt. We lost the battle. We are still in
the bondage of pessimism such that to any idea we doubt its practicality and
even if the idea triumphs we still believe something wrong will happen along
the way. Until when shall we keep on bondaging ourselves in the Egypt of
self-doubt? How long shall our exodus take to reach the promised and of
optimism?
Defeated you will be if only you accept to have been
defeated. A failure you will be if only you accept to have failed. It is knock
downs and knockdowns that make heavyweight boxers the greatest. The bottom line
is, in life you are standing on the edge of the unknown. Let your sadness go,
let your frustrations go. Let the hard past go. Free your mind and you will
make it. Nothing will take you down than a conquered mind. Try a little harder
to be a little better
