You are not a Prisoner of Your Past

The ability to recall facts, events and names of people is a trait that is admired by many. I believe this is also a trait that is needed for one to succeed in academics and other areas of life. People are usually pleased when people remember their names and they tend to think such persons regard them as special. So the ability to remember things is one that everybody should possess (and I think everybody possesses this ability to a degree).

Everyone of us also possesses the ability to forget things. It is just natural with us to forget things because of the enormous amount of information that we take in all the time.  My inspirational teacher explained human beings’ ability to forget things in a write-up he titled How Old is Your Knowledge? He explains that human knowledge can easily become stale or obsolete if not used all the time. He explained this with a graphic analogy: Knowledge is like documents that come into a pigeon-hole. The first document to come in soon takes the back seat as more documents are placed in the pigeon-hole. This means, he said, that the knowledge acquired today soon becomes obsolete or forgotten when not applied. So it is just natural that for us to forget things.

But there is another aspect to forgetting that I want to discuss in this piece. That is the ability to consciously forget things. The ability to consciously forget has to be learned; it doesn’t come naturally. This is because the things we have to consciously forget are things that are really hard to forget. In fact, some of them are things we don’t want to forget either because we want to use them as excuses for our state or because of complacency. It can be due any reason under the sun. One major reason you have to learn how to consciously forget things is because though you are a product of your past, you are not a prisoner of your past. And your past will have as much influence on your life as you will allow it. So what are those things we should learn to consciously forget?

Your failures. Yes, your failures. Some people allow their failures to hold them down. Free yourself from the clutch of failure. Take the sting out of failure by refusing to allow the hurt you experienced when you failed to affect you any longer. Don’t allow the memory of failure to prevent you from attempting new things. Don’t allow the embarrassment of failing stop you from becoming what you are capable of becoming. Use failure as a springboard only. Thomas Edison has helped us see failure in a new light by regarding it as a lesson on how not to do a particular thing. Do you still allow the memory of past failures to haunt you and pull you down? Make the decision today to erase such memory. Learning to forget your past failure means not allowing the negative emotions you experienced when you failed

Your successes. Everyone wants to succeed in life. We all want to flaunt our achievements. We all want people to remember us as successful people. We all want to feel good about our achievements. And if it is possible, we never want to forget about our successes. But the truth is that we must learn to forget our successes. My reasons? If you fail to forget about your successes, complacency may set in and you may not ultimately fulfill your potential. Here are some quotes I came across which I believe convey my thoughts on forgetting your successes: "Good is the Enemy of Great." “Whenever an individual or a business decides that success has been attained, progress stops.” “The good is the enemy of the best.” “Good is often the enemy of best. Too often in life we miss the best by settling for the good.” Do I need to add anything? If you continue to bask in the euphoria of one success, you may find yourself settling for less in life. I believe success in an endeavour should give you the confidence to attempt greater things. It should boost your belief that you are packaged for greatness; that you are capable of great things.

I end this piece by asking you this question: What is it that you need to forget so that you can realise your potential?

Two Things You Should Do This Year: Make Your Demand; Build Your Network

Last week, I took my wife to the hospital for treatment of cough and catarrh. It was our first time of visiting that hospital to see a doctor so we had to obtain a new patient’s card. We paid for the card without stress but it was not the same with obtaining the card. Since my wife was not feeling too well, I had to help her obtain the card while she sat down. The queue that confronted me where I was to obtain the card was scary but I did not have any option but to fall in line if I wanted to get the card. There were about five disorderly lines (the disorderlines actually accounts for why I cannot be exact about the number of lines) being attended to by two persons – the number later increased to three.

While waiting to be attended to, I observed something: some people who just joined the queue were attended to before those they met on the line. A man who was behind me found his way to the front and he was attended to before me. My first reaction to the man’s attitude was to wonder at his impatience and disregard for order. But it didn’t take me long to come to terms with what I concluded was the reality of life. I thought to myself that there was no need to blame him because his action only exemplified that life will hand you what you demand of it and not necessarily what you deserve. In life, some people wait for a good fortune to drop on their laps like ripe mangoes while others go about life with such a determination to make life give them what they want. This does not mean I support disorderliness. In fact, I am a firm believer in the first come, first served principle.

Another observation I made while waiting to get the card was that patients who knew hospital officials enlisted the support of such officials to help them get whatever they wanted quickly. This also did not anger me because I have come to realise that relationships can help you get ahead in life or take you where your knowledge or status may not take you. These patients who knew hospital officials were only enjoying the benefits of the relationships they had developed. And I am not one to blame the hospital officials for calling in favours in ther workplace. Where else would they call in such favours if not in their workplace?

I eventually obtained the card ahead of some people I met on the queue but my wife and I had to leave because the hospital was apparently short-staffed and the crowd was too much for the doctors on duty – I think there were just two doctors on duty. We went to another place (we didn’t go there at first because my wife could not locate her card). On getting to the other place, my wife saw a number of people she knew and she was quickly attended to. She saw the doctor who prescribed drugs for her. We got the drugs and left.

I learned two lessons that day.  Number one: make your demand on life. Demand from life what you want. Stretch forth your hand and grab or seize from life what you want. Don’t just sit down waiting on life to give you your desires because most times life will not give you what you want or even deserve but whatever it feels like giving you and that is why some say life is not fair. I am sure the prosperous -those who have learned how to make their demand on life- will not tell you that life is not fair. The second lesson I learned was the need to build relationships with people. We have to make relationship building a top priority. We need to be aggressive in forging relationships with people because we do not know when such relationships would yield great rewards for us. My inspirational teacher would always say that your networth is determined by your network. The network you build will ultimately determine where you get to in life. Your relationships determine how strong you are. Your network is an indication of how influential you are.

If you want to make your life count this year, then do these two things: make your demand and build your network.