Sunday 2 October 2016

THE YOUTHFUL MINDSET



THE HUMAN MIND

If you want to manipulate a man hold on to his mind. If you want him to talk more just hold on to his mind and stir it to the point that he will start talking

The Webster’s Dictionary defines the human mind as the element in an individual that feels, perceived, think, wills and especially reason.

The human mind has the following key characteristics: 

(1)        The Human mind is cosmic. It is the central point or element in man that has celestial nature and which enable him communicate with the unseen nature. 

(2)        The human mind is the seat of ideation, memory, visions, critical thoughts, insight and visualization. 

(3)        The human mind is also the central point which enables him transcends into the world beyond. This is enhanced through effective and consistent prayers and meditation. 

(4)        The human mind is dynamic and progressive. Romans 12:2, “…. but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God”.  Ephesians 4:23, said “…. be renewed in the spirit of your mind”.
 
THE TWO NATURE OF THE HUMAN MIND

The Positive or the Spirit Man: The positive man is characterized by a mindset that promotes healthy life style of the individual and the society. The positive mind sees life as a gift and seeks the good and progress of the society. This positive mindset bears fruits which include joy, love, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. The spirit man is always in the spirit and operates in a positive attributes.  It is well organized, well thought-out and always guarded against selfishness, competitiveness and self-centeredness, pride, vain glory, provoking and envying one another.  


               
The Negative or the Fleshy Man: The negative or fleshy man operates in the flesh. He is characterized by selfishness, egoism, worldly desire of materialism, I-want-all syndrome and avariciousness which include Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, sedition, heresies, Envying, murders, drunkenness, drugs addicts, homosexuality, medium practice, reveling, and such like. The fleshy man is self-principle oriented. It has nothing good for others rather it is designed to take from others. 



               
These two natures of the human mind are what determine your mindset. They are the foundations of your mindset. They guard you to make decisions, take actions and chose between what is right or wrong. Mindset therefore is defined as a complex mental state involving beliefs, feeling, values, judgments, morality, opinions, thoughts, principles and positions to act in a certain ways. 

Mindset can also be seen as the totality of what the mind perceived, grasp and become part of the mind. In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. Most people have their mindset structured from Biblical point of view. Others have their mindset structure from what happened to them. To some, it is structure base on mental perception of life or circumstances of life.


THE MINDSET AT CONFLICT
The mindset at conflict refers to a critical point or stage of life when man is spiritual or psychological detached from his real self. There are moments when our feelings completely contradict what we want. At this point, we feel that there is a lack of consistency in our behaviors and attitudes. At some points, we become unpredictable, disorganize and almost lost about ourselves. Our behavior becomes volatile. The activities of the mind become crippled. Decision becomes indecision. According to a writer, “A person who has a scattered or unpredictable behavior is usually the one who has a lot of inner conflicts that have not been resolved, thus lacking a congruent inner space. A conflict simply means that the mind is confused between are multiple “perspectives” and inclinations and is not able fixate on a singular vibration of thought. A person who has a consistence conflict of the mind tends to exhibit low self esteem, psychologically burden, spiritually crippled and physically manifest changes in moods and personality. This is where defence mechanism sets in, because there is a gap between his ego and super ego. The spiritual nature is not in term with his real self.



Saturday 1 October 2016

YOUTH AND THE POWER OF CHANGE



YOUTH AND THE POWER OF CHANGE
Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the change we’ve been waiting for- President Barack Obama

Change always comes bearing gifts”- Price Pritchett. Change is part of life. It is part of man but the ideology about change is quite difference from the reality of what is the true meaning of change. No human being wants to remain in a place while time goes by, development and improvement enable individual to move ahead as earth revolves- Abdulkareem Suleman. It is an undoubtedly fact to say that change always brings us pain, discomfort, complaint, sometimes tears, sometimes shares our bloods. This is because it removes something from the inside of us that we did not prepare, and replaces with something new and different we did not expect either. But then, this change in the long run brings us joy, comfort, dynamism, gain, honor, progress, promotion, and many good things. It could also bring us regret, pains, unhappiness, tears and negative consequences if we allow the negative change to visit us. Change is permanent, so they said. Almost every human being believes change is permanent but don’t be confused to hear that the permanency of change in itself is dynamism and that the only thing permanent is death. Change is constant and continuous over time. Change in my definition is a force of dynamism or regression. As you progress in the course of reading this chapter we shall look at the type of change and its level.

DEFINITION:
Change is a natural force responsible for the increase or decrease capability in the live of any organism. Change can either be appreciating or depreciating. If the change grows positively in terms of value, productivity, improvement, and creativity, we say it is a positive change. A negative change has to do with depreciation loses, regression, decrease in its original value and declining in earning ability, as well as the lack of happiness. 

Change is the only unforeseen force that displaces an organism from his original position. This position could be dynamic or regressive. One thing we should know about change is that it is a force that is determined and controlled by the organism, spiritual forces, events or circumstances, and time.

TYPE OF CHANGE:
1.           NATURAL CHANGE: Natural change is determined by the environment where we found ourselves, situations and events round about us, the church, and even our cultures. This type of change is so powerful that if not properly controlled could control and determine the extent of our changes. This natural change influences the way we think, reason, our perceptions, as well as our personality. Youths who allow the natural change to control them determine their fate by chance or probability. This type of persons could be victims of accident, victim of circumstances. Sometime, they can be victim of success by chance. If you asked them how comes that you made it? You hear them telling you, I do not know how it happens or still, they could attribute such success or circumstances to natural forces. Some believe they were born to succeed, even if they don’t do it they will still succeed. Others believe they have little or no controlled over circumstances happening to them. These categories of youths are like leaves on top of a river tossed about by every wind and waves.

2.           PERSONAL CHANGE: This type of change is specifically determined by the youth himself. These set of youths make Deut. 30:15 their watch words, “I have set before you this day life and death”. So it is all about their personally decision plus God’s intervention. This involves the individual making decision and backing such decision with actions. Here, the individual refused to be controlled by unforeseen forces of natural change. It is important to state that personal change occurs as a result of the individual mind set, his mentality and the level of his exposure to circumstances. Personal change is part of the mandate that God has given us the power to make decisions that affects our well being. Here, you make plans and how you can executive them. These sets of people fail but never allow failure to paralyze them, rather they live their lives doing what they know how to do the best they can. 

These set of youths have visions and will not let this visions die. These set of youths are the one who say to themselves like Brother Job: “I know my Redeemer lives”; or like Paul: “I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me”, come rain, come sun, I will never call it a quit. They will declare to themselves “God has made me for his purpose- Isaiah 43:6-7, I shall not fail.” Unlike those who usually confess negatively saying “that is how God wants it, there is nothing I can do about it”. These kinds of statements are lies from the pit of hell. Who said God wants it that way? Wake up and be the real person God programmed you to be.

THE POWER OF CHANGE, THE POWER OF BREAKTHROUGH,


YOUTH AND CREATIVITY




YOUTHS AND THE POWER OF CREATIVITY

Your brain has two cell mechanisms, one of these is the success cell mechanism and the other is the “failure cell mechanism.”
 
“If you are trying to achieve a goal, there will be roadblocks, I have had them, everybody has had them, but obstacles don’t have to stop you, if you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it” - Michael Jordan.
 
The second quote from a popular basket ball player reminds me of youngsters who quit at the slightest instance of challenge or run away from life’s pressure. These youths, who I consider as the live wire of any nation, seem to be the worst victim of this phenomenon. Many have failed to realize that the art of success lies in the process of facing challenges. According to Normal Vincent Peale, “When God wants to send you a gift, he wraps it up in a problem. The bigger the gift that God wants to send you, the bigger problem he wraps it up in.” Napoleon Hill in one of his books wrote, within every problem or challenge lies the seed of greater opportunity or benefit. Your job is to find it.

This page is however, dedicated to all youths who are almost giving up and running away from their God giving responsibilities. Woodron Wilson reminded me that, “leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise.” 

So each time you are about throwing up the towel, think about this; as a youth, you are a dealer in hope- Napoleon Bonaparte. Youth is the most powerful and creative force God has ever created. In all his assignments and responsibilities, He made use of almost 85% of the youths in the bible. We have heard the stories of people like Abel, Isaac, Joseph, Daniel, and the three Hebrew youths, see Daniel 1; 17. In the New Testament we had the like of Jesus Christ, Silas, Timothy, among others.

In this our modern age, the basic question we should ask ourselves is this, are the modern youths excluded from this God giving responsibilities or the youths themselves have ignored their responsibilities? How can we become creative and purposeful to our God, the family we belong, friends, relatives and the society at large? Yes, the answer is simply yes, we can, if only we are ready to apply the following simple secrets:

1.         DEVELOPING THE “I CAN MENTALITY” Your success has nothing to do with God. God has given us the will power to either succeed or fail (Deut. 30:19). It is your personal decision that makes the difference. Now note this, your brain has two cell mechanisms, one of these is the cell mechanism for success and the other is the “cell mechanism for failure.” It is what is activated inside of you that determine which of this mechanism function effectively. One thing you must know is that, the cell mechanism for failure is always at work, you do not need much to activate it but you need so much to control and reduce its influence. It is the only part of the human nature that is at work unconsciously. You do not need any lesson to activate the brain cell of failure, but you need so much to control it. That is the reason people do not learn how to be lazy, dull, dormant, and poor (spiritually, mentally and psychologically). 

You can just be sleeping while others are at works and you achieve failure. Proverbs 6:10-11 rightly said it “ A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and your poverty (failure) will come upon you like a vagabond and want like an armed man”. You see the benefits of being a failure. You do not need to struggle to become a failure (poverty). You do not need much to remain poor. What you need is just eat and sleep while others are at work. You do not need neither planning nor commitment, simply sit down and do nothing and you will achieve poverty. For one thing is sure, the easiest thing to do is doing nothing.

But when it comes to the success mechanism, it requires so much energy, planning and creativity. You must understand that it takes so much more to activate the success cell mechanism. It takes so much to nurture to seed or the brain cell of success to grow in the right direction of life. This is the reason you see successful men doing a whole lot of planning, commitment, and dedication. They put their mind and brain to work even when they are sleeping. Napoleon Hill in his book “Think and Grow Rich” put it this way; “whatever the mind of a man can conceive and believe; it can also achieve.” Unlike the failure mechanisms where you do not have to do much work to activate it except you control it. The success mechanism requires the specify foods such as prayer, that is why II Thessalonians 5:17 says, “Pray without ceasing” meaning continue to feed the spiritual man (the brain cell of success). Philippians 4:8 put it this way,” whatsoever that is true, honorable, just, fair, excellence, pure, grace, lovely, anything worth of praise (success) think about those things, and continue to feed your brain cell of success with those things. Very unfortunately, many have activated the mechanism for failure and locked up the mechanism for success knowingly or unknowingly.

Your thought determines your purpose,
your purpose go forth into action; actions form habits, habits decide characters and character fixes your destiny-
Tryon Edward.”