The Problem is not the Devil; It is the Man in the Mirror

 By Ogiri John Ogiri.

Growing up was quite tough for me. I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, so I experienced poverty firsthand. But then, living in a highly superstitious neighborhood meant that one was expected to take on a line of belief to explain why some people could be living in affluence while others lived in squalor. The popular explanation was that a force, a devil, could be responsible. Consequently, more efforts were invested in fighting the imaginary devil than were committed to solving the problem of poverty through a simple but practical method of achieving breakthrough namely tackling the scourge of a disastrous ignorance through education. For some of us, the devil was responsible or so we were conditioned to hold. Every subsequent religious teaching I got in my early childhood days seemed to point the root of the problem to one unfortunate figure, the devil. Oh poor devil! That was the mindset I grew up with until, some years ago when I acquired a new consciousness level. It was a radical mental re-orientation for me. As I searched for answers, I stumbled on a wonderful discovery; It was I, my mindset, who had held me back all those years, not the devil.

Once I discovered that I was the devil and that I was responsible for my successes and failures in life, I stopped apportioning blames to all imagined externalities (including everyone around me who, before now, I had been conditioned by a dangerously superstitious religious ideology to believe and see as the enemy) and began focusing on purging myself of every trace of all knowledge and attitudinal impediments capable of impeding my chances of personal success. I stopped firing the devil and started firing myself. I realized that once I stopped entertaining the false belief that a black devil with a long tail existed somewhere, independent of me, and that he had been responsible for my lack of progress, I began to discover a new perspective about who I really was and what I could and could not do. Today, I am proud of my freedom from this kind of lazy, retrogressive thinking.

As long as we maintain the belief that someone somewhere is to blame for our failures in life, we will continue to remain stagnant since that gives us certain kinds of delusional reasons to remain so without any serious effort to break out and achieve our goals. Honestly, the problem is not the devil; the problem is the man in the mirror. Leave the devil alone and face the man in the mirror. If God had wanted to kill the devil, (who for me remains a mental construction of smart preachers), He wouldn't recruit your help. He would have killed 'him' without you knowing. So save the energy for something better.

 If you need new information, read a book and watch tutorials. If you need a job, go to school. If you need money, learn a skill. If you have a job, take your duty seriously and give it your best shot. Save before spending. Spend wisely. If you are not satisfied with your current job, acquire a new skill and move out to a better place. If you need a partner, be yourself and choose whom you can live with, not necessarily whom you love. If you have money, contribute to charity. If you have a chance to help people secure jobs, do that in love, expecting nothing in return. If you have a bad temper, work on yourself. If you are sick, visit the hospital while you pray God heal you through the doctor's fingers. Do all these and see yourself worry less about the devil. Change your mindset. Change the man in the mirror and the devil will take care of himself.

© Ogiri John Ogiri.

#reality 

#nuggets 

#mindset