Opportunities or challenges

Sitted with the members of the community leadership I listened to their talk and discussion. They pointed out all the challenges in their community. They lamented about their problems and difficulties. One by one they went on detailing how bad their circumstances were.

I sat in my chair and looked down for most of the time. Their lamentations were agitating my spirit and their minimal lack of aspiration bothered me deeply. Yet I didn’t want to come off as arrogantly so I contained myself.

After a while I spoke up, very gently and yet measuring my words and keen not to sound harsh.

I asked ourselves because I was included in the conversation, who we expected to solve our challenges. Who were we hoping would be the Good Samaritan to lift us from the place of despair.

The world we live in presents both challenges and opportunities. If you set out to look for problems, you will not have to look far. They are everywhere. Similarly, if you choose to look for opportunities, they are not out of reach. Otherwise, we would all have wound up and left the world.

This is what deeply bothers me.

How well positioned are my children? By experience and practice, am I teaching them to whine and complain about life or am I nurturing them to see opportunities in the very same challenges that have befallen everyone else.

By the eyes that we see, we determine the level we shall go. If our vision is impaired, what we see and do shall definitely be impaired.

In the very same economy that the community I was with was complaining, there were people making it big and growing. And no, it is not because their oxygen was blue or that their blood was white. It was because they chose to look for answers rather than focussing on the limitations.

May God help us all. Firstly to work on ourselves and to graduate our thinking from the beggarly and limited mindset to the mindset that sees that despite the fuel crisis, people are still driving their cars. From the mindset that thinks it is not possible to raise independent thinkers to the one that thrives despite the escalating inflation rates.

The other key thing is that may God help us to deliberately and intentionally inculcate these same values in our children, challenging them to dream big, think big and think of solutions rather than dwelling on what they cannot change or improve.

You may not be able to stop the excess rain when it pours but by wisdom you can be able to channel and save the excess rain water for it to be used and to work in the next season of drought and famine. That is a mind that sees opportunity even in the challenges.

May the repeated challenges and shortcomings of our time, teach us to channel our creativity and innovation for the good of all. Necessity is the mother of all inventions.