Ubuntu

 

I hate to use myself as an example,because I know there are some people who know so much about me,that they think they know me. So they might struggle to believe anything about me,that is different from what they know about me.

Unfortunately i just couldn't find a better example. Growing up,i never got involved in a fist fight. Although i was relatively small physically,the main reason was because my punches didn't seem enough to transfer the pain i was feeling inside of me to the other person. Moreover,there was also a chance of ending up getting hurt myself,and i just couldn't take the risk.

Therefore,the best solution i found was to keep quite and not react. Then to put off the fire of hurt inside me,i would downgrade the way i viewed the person,till it matched whatever they did to me. For example,there are those kids who would just hit me for no good reason,so i would imagine them as something else that hurt me,but did not get me angry,e.g the "swintila" (those tiny black ants that sting). So looking at them that way would make me laugh instead. That also got me to have a lot of kids who wanted to play with me because i was supposedly "harmless".

However,those characters i assigned to people were permanent,,so even though i was a friend to almost everyone,i had very few of those who i regarded as my friends. This also meant that i had few people who i relied upon,so I got inclined towards being self-reliant and content with the things i had.

But then as I am getting older,I am beginning to understand a lot of things about life,and one thing that has stood out  the most is that,"we were never designed to be independent ". In other words," humans cannot exist in isolation,we depend on connection,community and caring". That's the concept of "UBUNTU",as our elders call it. 

That meant i needed to change my strategy,i needed one that would enable me to say," I am,because you are,regardless of who you are". But i didn't get rid of the old one entirely. There's one element of it that I still believe is very important and most people are not aware of it, which is: it's good to know the difference between your thoughts and feelings,before you can consider your actions. 

Your mind is always cycling between thoughts and feelings. What comes first is the thought,as in the things that make you feel bad,are those that you think they are bad. And interestingly,the moment you  feel bad about something,it causes you to have bad thoughts.  So it's that continuous cycle that gives you the drive to act.

Therefore all you really need is to break that cycle,,you can either control your thoughts or your feelings. For example if you have bad thoughts about something,make sure you don't allow those thoughts to make you feel bad,,or if something is making you feel bad,,don't allow it to make you have bad thoughts. 

If you just manage to do that,you will be able to act in a way that will not compromise your relationship with other people,because you need them