It is easy, especially as a person who reads a lot of self-growth and productivity books, to believe that it is possible to achieve change all at once, or at least, within a brief period of time. After all, most of the stories in self-help books go this way: I was broke and unhappy, working in a job that made me miserable, etc. And one day, I decided that I had had enough of what life was dishing out to me, that I wanted more out of life, so I transformed my life for the better, changed my habits and I have never been happier than I am at the moment. 

After reading scores and scores of these kinds of testimonies, most of the writers of such works not being very detailed as to the step-by-step process it took for them to get to where they were in, I started to think that the recipe to change was to barge into it all at once; that to be productive and make something out of my life, I was going to have to make a lot of radical changes all at once and I sincerely thought that I was going to pull through with it.

During the pandemic period, I thought that it was going to be possible for me, as it is for most people that make New Year’s resolutions, to switch from someone that spent all of her time watching movies, scrolling through memes on social media, and generally loved wasting time and engaging in convenient and pleasurable activities, that felt good to her, to someone that exercised every single day, quit movies and social media cold turkey, and spent most of her time reading school books, self-help books, or taking courses.

And it did work, for like, the first few days in which the motivation and the adrenaline were still intact. But after some time, I crashed, plummeted, and fell back to the person that I was but with the added benefit of the guilt that I felt for not being able to maintain and build up the life that I wanted to build for myself, not being able to become the ideal person that I wanted to be.

Here is the thing: not only was I not ready to make the change that I wanted to make, but I did not even take the time to build up the system that I needed to make the change possible. I wanted to give up on social media and the likes, but I never made provisions as to what I was to do instead during the periods in which I felt such acute boredom, that I needed the distraction that I got from social media. When I worked out, I put too much pressure on myself, and hence I began to dread exercising because all that I could think of was the pain that I was going to subject myself to, pain that left my muscles sore for days at certain times. And I dreaded the boredom and pain of the life that I knew I would need to live to become the ideal person that I wanted to be.

And it has taken me an embarrassingly long time to learn, but now I know that if you think you can just turn your life around, transform all your bad habits all at once, and make yourself the ideal person that you want to become just after one day of planning, then you are setting yourself up for failure. And even though I do not have the statistical figures to say that there is a 100% chance of failure, I can say that most people that approach habit change this way are doomed to fail.

Now, do not get me wrong, one thing that I have found is that once you are intentional about change, even if you fail at changing some habits or developing new habits, you never really go back to being the person you used to be. So even though I could not maintain a lot of the habits that I tried to crash into, even when I went back, I never did truly go back to the person that I was before I decided that my life needed a change. Something had changed within me with all the books that I had read, the videos that I had listened to, and even the experiments that I had tried in a bid to change my habits, a change that was so fundamental that it reflected in the time that I got back to school after the pandemic and strike.

So yes, I had changed, and that change sustained me and enabled me to maintain the grades that I got in the university whilst participating in a lot of extra-curricular activities and so on, but that did not wipe away the guilt that I felt in not being able to sustain that habits that I wanted to sustain. There was still some part of me that I knew could use some change, but because I had not yet learned the lesson that with habit change, I needed to take it one step at a time, I never was able to achieve the change that I needed to achieve.

You see, change is like growth. In fact, when it comes to behavioural and habit change, both words can be used simultaneously when they are looked at in a positive light. So when you change your habits for the better, you are growing as a person. And human growth takes time, whether physical, mental, or spiritual. You cannot speed it up, cannot take gallops in growth. You just have to take it one step at a time.

And what do I mean by this? Many self-growth coaches preach something known as 1% growth in all areas of change. That means that even when you want to make a radical transformation, you have to have a 1% growth regularly until you get to where you wish to get, until you become the ideal person that you want to become. Even if you want a total transformation in your life, you have to know that this sort of thing will not be achieved within a short period, that it will take time.

Look at habit transformation as a skill that you have to learn. Now, I have been working on my typing skill, even though I do not practice every day. And one thing that I have noticed, one thing that every typing app and website that I have used teaches, is that at the first point, it is very difficult to master touch typing. Sometimes, you have to reduce your wpm to 10 until you can achieve close to 95 percent accuracy. Learning how to touch type during the first few months can be very frustrating and it is still frustrating for me at certain levels, but you cannot speed up the process or you will end up getting finger fatigue and achieve nothing.

In those first few months of learning any skill, you have to learn how to forgive yourself for the mistakes that you make along the process, in fact, be prepared for making a lot of mistakes. The important thing is that you should not give up on yourself and think that you will not be able to master that skill just because it has been very difficult for you in the first few months of trying to master the skill. But then, the great thing about learning a particular kind of skill is that the moment that you are able to wade through the first few tough months, it becomes very easy for you to speed up your growth process. So, for most typists, after they are able to reach up to 70 wpm or thereabout, reaching to 100 or 120 becomes very easy for them.

Habit change should be viewed through the same lens as learning a skill. As I can tell you for sure because I am still, for a lot of habits that I am working on, still in the beginning stages of hunting for the best steps to go about and maintain the routines that I want to maintain, it is difficult to get to change the bad habits that you have, habits which you must have stuck with for years and which have become a part of your being. Thinking that you can just stop a particular habit especially when there are cues all around that push you to perform that particular habit without ever missing the comfort that the old habits provided, is nothing but a fantasy. But deciding to improve on that habit in small bits at regular intervals, is a more plausible way to go about things.

What do I mean by this? Maybe you spend too much time watching movies and you want to end this because you are very much aware of the amount of time you are wasting on movies. Instead of just stopping movies entirely and deleting all the movies that you have on your phone, you could limit yourself to just one movie a day, then one movie every three days, and then one movie a week. Maybe you want to grow spiritually but are finding it difficult to. Instead of thinking that you can become a prayer warrior all of a sudden, you could start small and dedicate an amount of time, even if it is twenty minutes every day, to God and spiritual activities, and from there, you can incorporate spiritual books, .

And whenever you begin to work on yourself, you should be aware of the fact that you might stumble and crash to the ground. You may wake up after resolving to reduce your screen time and see yourself spending hours on end binge-watching a movie series. You could decide to be intentional about your walk with God and see yourself spending a week without remembering to perform your spiritual activities. Two instances could happen whenever you meet this kind of roadblock. The first is that you could decide that you can never change, as many people do when they encounter any sort of frustration or find themselves going against all that they have planned to do, going back to the habits that they decided that they were going to change. Or you could forgive yourself, know that this is just a part of the process, and kick yourself back into gear. The difference between the two choices you have to make is that one would lead to you remaining at the spot that you are and deciding to never change because you are afraid of failing or falling short of any expectations for yourself. The other would lead to a situation in which the little stumble that you had in the past would not even matter in the long run. Yet, we have a lot of people choosing to give up on themselves and their dreams of change simply because it was not the smooth, clear ride they expected it to be.

All in all, change is a slow, difficult process. As you work towards bettering yourself, be prepared to meet stumbling blocks in the way. But you should always ensure that you take change one step at a time so that you can always be prepared to meet whatever obstacles you might face along the way. Assuredly, no matter what pace that you are working with, as long as you continue moving and never relent, someday, you will become that ideal person that you want to be.

I find it rather shocking, perhaps, because I am a writer as well, that many people take the habit of reading fiction as nothing more than a leisurely activity, on the same level of entertainment as mindlessly scrolling through memes on Twitter or playing video games. 

Of course, there is no doubt that with the freedom that has been afforded every single person on this earth to write and self-publish a book, unlike what was available when books could only be published through top publishing companies that thoroughly screened books before they could reach the eyes of the public, and with the recent phenomenon of improperly constructed web novels, with plots that are as absurd as the styles of writing and the prevalence of grammatical errors in each of them- this is self-deprecating, I do earn a fair amount of both passive and active income from writing web novels, that there are books that are so mindless that reading them could be placed in the same category as mindlessly scrolling through social media.

But as for me, a chronic book lover, or bookaholic, as we like to call ourselves, I have found that books, and especially fiction books, do offer more than entertainment, but an opportunity to find some of the most interesting ways to learn about new concepts. 

The importance of fiction in this regard is a bit underrated. As an almost involuntary act, one of the first things that I do if I want to find out about a particular concept or learn something new is to check if there is a novel somewhere about it.

That has been how I have managed to navigate and learn new things about one concept that has been rather intriguing to me, which is the concept of the human mind. For a relatively long time, I have been mesmerised by the way the mind of humans work and I have found myself conducting personal studies into psychology, and more specifically, into mental illnesses, trying to figure out what changes occur in the brain and mind of a person that makes the person develop a mental illness.

One of the first mental illnesses that I became interested in was depression. This did not just occur without a reason, for I was introduced to that aspect of psychology by a competition that pushed me to study depression. It was a poetry competition and even though I have forgotten what wordings were used in the theme of the competition; I do recall that it had something to do with depression and suicide. The moment I saw the competition and got interested in it, I knew that one of the first things that I was going to have to do would be to read all that I could on the sickness, and not just read up on it objectively, but to express, with words, what goes on in the mind of a person, what pushes a person to decide that suicide is the only way out for him or her.

I began researching, of course, and at the time, I did not make use of a book but did a Google search on the topic. However, while I saw a million and one blog posts that tried to explain the symptoms of depression, I could not make sense of what went through the minds of people suffering from the mental illness until I stumbled into a blog post in which the sufferers and suicide survivors used their own words to explain what it felt like for them to be on the edge, what it had been for them to decide that there was no other way out for them than to end their own lives and it was only through reading those accounts that I could tap into the thought processes of depressed people and have a feel of what they felt.

Some lines of the poem that I came up with after reading the personal accounts are:

I am alone in a dark lonely night, silent as a graveyard, basking in my state of acute pain

..........

It has been a war between hope and despair, a war in which I tried to ignore the intrusive thoughts, the impulses, the outright despair that threatened to override my survival instincts

..............

I can’t see beyond this deep pit that I have been hurled into, the pain will never end, I will be better off dead

...........

I have to do this, I need to

I need to end my incredibly painful, totally senseless now, need to end these dark nights of the soul that I have had to endure.

.....................

This may be an impulsive ultimate decision, but I have a strong conviction that it is the only way out.

Now, given that I am not much of a poet, and because of some issues that I had with my submission, I did not get to win the contest. However, there is no denying that it did open my eyes to the world of the psychology of mental illnesses and began my quest to find more ways to learn about them.

Given that I had gotten my true first understanding of the mental illness, I sought to write more about it and many more mental illnesses, using my knowledge of the illnesses to bring into light the challenges that people who pass through such illnesses go through because I felt it was important to bring these to light, given the fact that in Nigeria, mental illnesses are more or less unspoken about and many do not even get treatment.

Of course, to write accurately about both depression and other mental illnesses, I had to supplement my knowledge by reading stories of people that had suffered from the illness; it came as no brainer to me that if I wanted to learn all that I could, the best place to look in was in the world of fiction.

And that began my quest into reading on mental illnesses, including depression in fiction.

Now, I believe that depression is one of the easier mental illnesses to write about, so I found it very easy to find scores and scores of books on the topic. Here are some novels that I read and how they opened my eyes deeper into the mind of a depressed person. 

1. IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY BY NED VIZZINI.

This was one of the first books that I read on depression. It is a true-life story of an experience that the author went through (I feel as though I should note this, but after I finished reading the book, I, to my greatest despair and sadness, found that the author committed suicide a few years after writing the book so it changed a few things about the perspective I had of the book.)

The book centers on a fifteen-year-old boy named Craig. From what I can recall of the book, he enters a high-profile private high school that he worked very hard to get into, but the moment he enters the school, he begins to find it very difficult to cope amidst other smart people. Furthermore, the fact that his ‘closest’ friend, one whom he does drugs with, gets into the high school easily without putting in much work and is currently dating a girl that he has a crush on does not help matters for him.

The pressure that comes with the pressures of his over-demanding school, his feeling of inadequacy in the school, his perfectionism, the fact that he is somewhat of an overachiever, and the teenage angst that he is overcome with plunges him into depression. After some time, he finds it difficult to even eat, and eventually, after a night of coming terribly close to committing suicide, calls a suicide hotline and gets himself admitted into the institution where he spends five days on admission.

During the five days, he has experiences, meets other mentally ill people, gets a crush, and is eventually able to overcome his depression.

From the onset, when I read the book, I found it to be an interesting and heart warming book about survival and one that was very detailed and did quite a lot in opening my eyes as to not only the fact that depression is not age specific, but to the mind of a depressed perfectionist teenager. But I have to admit that I was sceptical of the five days to recovery narrative. I felt that the things that happened were a bit too rushed and there was not much of a thorough analysis or much time given for a proper dive into the internal issues that led to his depression. it almost appeared he got into the institution, fell in ‘like’ with a girl, made some new friends, found that some of his old friends were not the people that he thought they were, got some support, and that was enough. It was a nice story but from what little I knew, I felt that it did not seem quite enough to treat depression. But I had these beliefs before I found that it was a true-life story.

But the book has its peaks. There was not much suspense in the book, the action was minimal, but I have to say that it was clear that the author knew and had gone through what he wrote. The portrayal of what Craig went through before he entered the mental institution was heart-wrenching, honest, and realistic. The conversations that he had with his therapist opened my eyes to a lot of the internal struggles that a person with depression has to go through, and I even related a little to the pressure that he felt with being inadequate in school. 

Craig, the protagonist, was light in how he talked about his depression, without leaving the heavy nasty parts.

“Some days I woke up and got out of bed and brushed my teeth like any normal human being; some days I woke up and laid in bed and looked at the ceiling and wondered what the hell the point was of getting out of bed and brushing my teeth like any normal human being.”

“I just want to not be me.”

“I should be a success and I’m not and other people- younger people- are. Younger people than me are on TV and getting their lives in order. I’m still a nobody. When am I going to not be nobody?”

The author wrote other books dealing with teenage angst and depression, but I did not get around to reading any other ones.

2. BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS, I’LL BE DEAD BY JULIE ANNE PETERS

I have to say; the title made me know that I just had to read the book.

And this book, oh my, it is something, to say the very least. 

The book centres around a protagonist named Daelyn, who is on her last strand of life. What this means is that she has attempted and failed to commit suicide so many times. In fact, the last attempt she had, in which she poured ammonium and bleach down her throat, resulted in her having a burned stomach lining and a collapsed oesophagus and she has to wear a heavy neck brace. Also, the attempt leaves her unable to talk and eat. She gets skinny and frail as a result.

A bit of insight is given into why Daelyn wants to end her life. She has been bullied throughout her years in school, demeaned and insulted because of her weight, and even almost gets raped at a point in time. Furthermore, because of her being overweight, her parents make her go through a series of diets and even enroll her in a fat camp in which she gets abused emotionally and tortured with excessive exercise.

This culminates in the suicidal person that she is at the moment. 

As a character, she does not have much to offer but I think I understand why the author chose to make her that way. She is at a point in which she has logged onto a website for suicidal people and has 24 days in which she intends to distance herself from every other person in the world and mentally prepare herself to finally have a successful attempt. 

Apart from the flashbacks that she has, most of her days are spent reading novels and on her laptop, having no other hobbies or activities. She is almost dead on the inside, deeply depressed, and does not show much of any emotions in the book. She could be viewed as being a bit one-dimensional in that aspect, but I think it makes utter sense. 

Right as she is trying to get distanced from everybody, in walks Santana, a boy her age that, no matter how much she tries to distance herself from him, just does not leave her alone and talks a lot to her even though she does not respond to most of his questions. Eventually, though, she begins to have tender feelings toward him and they build their friendship.

The book ends on a cliff hanger. It is the last day of the 24 days that she has set out to die and the author does not resolve whether or not she chooses to die, leaving it to the readers to decide. 

Like most books that deal with depression, this is not action-packed and is quite disturbing to read. But the writing of the author made me enjoy learning about the book and does a good job in showing what the thought process of a suicidal person feels like, as it displays raw accounts of the girl deliberating on how best to die and choosing the most pain-free ways to go about it. It is a great read if you are into heart-wrenching stories.

3. SUICIDE NOTES

This book is different from the others because, despite the title, it is quite light-hearted if compared to some of the other books that deal with these topics.

It deals with a protagonist named Jeff who, after a failed suicide attempt in which he slits his wrists, he finds himself committed to a mental institution where he is to stay for 45 days. 

But here is the thing, even though he attempted suicide, he does not believe that there is nothing wrong with him and is under the belief that he differs from the other patients at the mental institution, people that he refers to as nut jobs.

The book follows the 45 days that he spends in 45 chapters in which Jeff gets to have an experience that is somewhat similar to the one of Craig in ‘Its Kind of a Funny Story.’ However, just like the other book, this one cannot be listed amongst the best books on depression that I have read in terms of how it describes the illness. Also again, it did not go into a deep dive to explain what happens in the mind of depressed people, no doubt because they wanted to push the narrative of the main character being delusional, funny, and comical (like calling the doctor Dr. Cat Poop throughout his duration kind of funny).

However, his tone was confusing to me. This was someone that attempted suicide, something that a lot of chronically depressed people do not even get to do and he is being written as comical almost the very next day? I did not buy it at all.

There is a point in which one character, the friend of the protagonist, Sadie, commits suicide and I think that was the only point that I felt genuinely sad in. Apart from it, the book ranged from being too light-hearted to being disturbing at some points.

4. CUT

This is another book that is quite insightful, but which I had mixed feelings about. The main character is a 15-year-old girl named Callie, who cuts herself and, as a result, has been put into a rehabilitation centre called Sea Pines treatment centre.

But during the period that she is there, she does not show any sign that she is willing to change, does not even speak, and is mocked by her fellow patients as a result. In fact, while she is there, she is silent during group time, hides behind her hair, and even when she sees her counsellor, she cannot bring herself to speak. All she does is watch and listen.

She is the only cutter in the group for a while until Amanda comes into the group. Unlike her, Amanda is very vocal and shows her scars. According to the book, the moment that Callie sees the scars or tattoos that Amanda does on herself, for some reason, it makes her want to stop cutting herself.

It is later revealed that she is a perfectionist, a runner, has a sick younger brother and her parents are too busy to pay any sort of attention to her. She also has social issues, as is revealed by her silence around the other patients and how she finds it difficult to make any sort of connection with them.

Callie blames herself for a lot of things. For her brother’s illness, (and it is revealed that a particularly nasty incident with her brother, in which her brother fell very ill, seemed to lead to her cutting), for the fact that she is neglected by her parents and blames herself for her mother’s anxiety issues. Also, the fact that she lives in a lonely broken home contributes to her mental illness.

After some experiences that she has with her fellow inmates, including her interactions with Amanda, the anorexics, and Daphne, the girl who is obese and is a compulsive eater, she finds healing within the centre and in the end; she decides that it is time to speak and narrates her experiences to her unnamed counsellor.

The book was the shortest of the bunch and whilst I was used to the lack of suspense and much action that is associated with books that deal with this topic, I have to say that, compared to another book that had descriptions on cutting that I had read, ‘Scars’ by title, the description of the cutting and the reasons behind the cutting were a bit lacking.

I did like the book, especially the inner drama between the patients, but it was not comprehensive enough and did not go deep into the inner workings of the girl’s mind or give a very satisfactory ending.

The four other books that I read on the topic include:

1. MY HEART AND OTHER BLACK HOLES

2. GET WELL SOON

3. THE MANIFESTO ON HOW TO BE INTERESTING

4. CRANK

They will be analysed in another post (link will be attached to this one once it is published).

In all, I have to say that the novels really opened my eyes to all the intricacies of living with chronic depression. As an author that intends to write a lot of stories dealing with victims of abuse and mentally ill persons, to bring light to the issues that they face, they have provided me with a blueprint on how to go about writing the books.

And also, I believe that we all should read some sort of literature relating to mental illnesses. Not only will doing such broaden our minds, but it could potentially lessen the prejudice that people with mental disorders face.

...............................

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One of the first Christian books that I finished by the time that I decided to become intentional with my relationship with The Lord was ‘The Purpose Driven Life’ by Rick Warren, which, I have to admit, took me over forty days to read even though the advice of the author was that each of the 40 chapters were to be read one a day for forty days. The book opened my eyes to a question that I had never even thought of asking myself before, and that was the question of what my purpose was in this life.

Of course, throughout my life, I had thought a lot about what I wanted to be in life, and I had moved from wanting to be a medical doctor to a professor, and then somehow wound up studying law. A lot of what I wanted to be was hinged on the fact that I wanted to make a lot of money, and be, as I am sure every child has dreamt of being at least once or twice in his or her life, the richest person in the world.

In fact, when I was in secondary school, in one of my first journals, I wrote that as an adult; I was going to make 75 billion dollars, which of course, at the time, there had been no billionaires that had risen to that point. And with that amount of money, I was sure that I was going to be boosted to becoming the richest person in the world.

Never did I, during those years, think of what my purpose was based on what the Lord wanted me to do. 

That has changed, of course, and that happened, to a large extent, by the time that I was done reading the book. But it was not the only thing that made me go back to thinking about what my purpose was.

A few months ago, in a conversation that I had with a Christian family that I was a member of, a question was brought forth, and that was what we all wanted to be in our lives. Each of the people that I sat with was given the opportunity to talk about what we wanted to be and I got to sit and hear those that wanted to practice different areas of law, those that wanted to open studios, become businessmen, and kingdom wealth builders, those that wanted to open fast-food joints, those that wanted to study to the peak of education, those that wanted to become philanthropists.

During my turn, I have to admit that I felt a bit at loss for words. For one, I did not have as much as those that I had listened to had. As I listened to them, only one thing came to my mind.

But first, I set things out clearly. I did not know whether I was going to be practising the law that I was studying; I did not know whether I was going to further my education. In the next ten years, I said, I was not even sure that I had marriage and children in view. 

There were only two things that I had in mind. One was that I wanted to live the monastic lifestyle, spending months in solitude, away from the cares of the world, with a safe space to think, and I wanted to write, write words that would glorify the name of the Lord, books that would inspire change and a transformation in the lives of others, books like those of the renowned preachers and self-growth coaches, both fiction and non-fiction alike.

Also, I had it in mind, even though I was not sure of it at that moment, that somewhere in the near future, I wanted to be the one person who would bring about a mental illness awareness in Nigeria through my writings, as I realised that Nigerians seemed to heavily neglect that aspect of health more than others.

I felt as though what I had said was insufficient, given that it was not as fully fleshed out as some others were. And that felt wrong for me, given the fact that I do very much like to think of myself as very driven and ambitious but the key thing I had to note was that, not only were the things that I said the first things that assuredly came to my mind the first time that I heard the question of what I wanted to do with my life, but I also had the time, although it was limited, to think up more things to add to the list of things that I had in mind.

After the discussion, which later spanned to a teaching on how what the Lord may have planned for us might not be what we have planned for ourselves, we began to sing a song and a prayer over and over again, which went like this:

“Thy will be done.”

The song had only this as the chorus, with us inserting things to go with the song like:

“Even when I am weary, thy will be done

Even when it is not my plan, thy will be done

Even if it is difficult, thy will be done.”

I have a prayer book, and shortly after that, I wrote two things down in that prayer book.

They were

“Father please, I want to be ever focused, ever pushing on to achieve the purpose that you have set out for me. Father, please give me the grace to conquer and overcome every distraction that seeks to make this not to become a reality for me.”

And 

“Father, I do not know where you are leading me, what direction you wish for my life to take. But Lord, please open my eyes so that I may tow in that direction.”

After saying those prayers, there was no instant revelation that came to me as to what I was supposed to do. But that was not surprising. After all, I knew people that I considered greater leaders than I am in the faith that admitted that they were not sure of what it was that they were going to do. And besides, I was aware that sometimes, the Lord does not show you the end of the road. He just directs your steps. But when you reach there, you will know that you have arrived at the promised land.

But then again, there are people who are aware of their purpose, know clearly what path they are to chart in their lives, even those that may know there is a chance that the Lord will not come in and pop some surprise for them in their lives. But for a lot of us, I believe that we still have to keep treading on the paths that the Lord has set out for us, mostly unaware of where he is going to lead us to, unaware of where the final destination is going to be in. Sometimes, we may not even be aware of the fact that the Lord is charting a way for us in the first place.

I have found that for a lot of biblical leaders, that is usually the path that the Lord prefers. When the Lord told Hosea to marry Gomer, a prostitute, in Hosea 1:2, He told him what it was to represent, but not what the end goal of it all was.

When Joseph began to have his dreams and visions, which eventually led him to be hated by his brothers and be carried out to Egypt, he just followed the way that his circumstances forced him to, ensuring that he did not deviate from the ways of the Lord, without knowing that he was towing the way that the Lord had set out for him.

The Lord kept Abraham largely in the dark, even though he was knowledgeable about the fact that he was to be a father of many nations, of whether it was going to be possible given that his wife was barren. It took till Abraham was seventy-five before he even received a message that seemed to indicate that the Lord had plans to give him any children at all. 

Moses was largely in the dark until his eighties as to what he was saved for. He knew that he was a child that was saved by the Lord from death, but the Lord did not tell him what purpose he was exempted for until much later in his life.

But then, some people knew or rather had an inkling of an idea of what they were to be carved out to achieve from the Lord right at the beginning before they were to perform their tasks. Over the years, there have been people that have received the call, to be pastors, missionary workers, to preach the word of the Lord through their medical practice, law practice, etc. But I would like to believe that even in the midst of their knowledge, there still has to be a sense of uncertainty, they still have to contact the Lord daily to know if they are or are not going in the right direction.

THE WILL OF THE LORD VS OUR TALENTS

So more recently, I have had the vague sense of knowledge of the fact that whatever the Lord has called me out to be, there has to be an element of my writing talents that will be used for it. The Lord was the one who gave me the gift. What other reason would he have given it to me for?

There is this school of thought that believes that whatever our purposes are, it has to stem from what we like to do, what we are naturally good at, and what our talents are. If you know how to sing, then that must mean that the Lord has called you to be a singer. If you are an intellectual, then it must mean that the Lord has called you to be an academic.

And I believe that there has to be an element of truth in that. Most of the time, we do not know what we will end up doing, but most can hinge on the assurance that one way or the other, the talents that the Lord has given to us, the things that we are naturally inclined to do, will be what will determine what God has created us to do.

But is that exhaustive? Gideon was a coward, and yet the Lord called him to be a great war leader. Moses was a stutterer and yet the Lord called him to lead a nation. Most of the apostles were bereft of the education that would make one capable of being able to preach to a crowd of people, but they were called to do that. I know pastors, evangelists, and bishops, that have said that in all their life, there was no way that they would have envisioned that this was the path that the Lord had set out for themselves, that there was nothing that gave it away that they would have any talents or gifts that would lead them to be able to do the things that they were called to be. Many have testified to the fact that they cried and fasted even, when they received a clear sign of what the Lord wanted them to do, unable to understand why they had been chosen.

But in the end, they showed, despite the assumed lack of talents, that they had what it took to do what they were assigned to do. After all, whomever the Lord anoints, he equips.

So maybe it is not a question of personal talents or what we love doing but what the Lord has equipped us to do. Sometimes, it may align with what we think are our talents and what we enjoy doing. Sometimes, we might not have been able to figure out that we were equipped for the purpose until after it has been revealed to us.

I was listening to an audiotape by a preacher once when I got something that I knew had to be reassurance from the Lord as to what direction my purpose was to take me. The preacher had mentioned something about the fact that the entertainment that we have in the world has been polluted by the devil and that he uses it to trap the souls of men. And that was when I heard a still small voice inside of me tell me I was to make an impact for the Lord in the entertainment sector. I do not know exactly what I will do, but I know that by this, my purpose is to cause a turnaround in the entertainment sector of the world through my writing. 

I do not have a clear map as to where I would have to go, but that is of no concern to me. For I am assured of the fact that wherever the Lord tells me to go, I have prayed and asked for the grace to be able to go. But I do know that I will make use of my God-given talent for writing.

THE WILL OF GOD VS OUR PLANS AND DREAMS

When we were having that meeting, a woman that decided to join us in the retreat camp that we went to stopped us in the middle of the discussion. And then she proceeded to mention something that I believe is worthy of note.

Her message was simple and clear. She made it known to us that stating plans for our future and dreams the way that we stated them were things that were meant for the secular world. As for us, we should never fix our minds rigidly on whatever plans it may be that we may have made for ourselves.

Therefore, there is a chance that every vision and dream that you have been working towards by God could be upended by the Lord because it may not be what the Lord has set out for us.

After all, our purpose supersedes our ambitions, the plans that we have made for ourselves, and where we see ourselves in the nearby future. Our purpose is not meant to come from within, but from whatever that the Lord has set out for us. After all, He alone knows why he created us. He alone knows the good plans that he has made for us according to Jeremiah 1: 5.

So, does that mean that we are not meant to have plans, dreams, goals, or visions for our future? Does that mean that we are not allowed to plan our lives, and make career choices because the Lord may have other plans for us?

I do not think so. But there is a bit of condition precedent to making any plans for our lives as Christians, a condition precedent to having dreams and goals for our lives.

According to James 4: 13-15

13. Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow, we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” 

14. How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog- it is here a little while, then it’s gone.

15. What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.”

That is the condition precedent. We are allowed to make plans by the Lord, we are allowed to have dreams and set out goals for ourselves. In fact, to be successful in life, we have to do these things, otherwise we will roam about listlessly, not knowing what we are doing with our lives. 

But whatever plan that we are making, whatever dreams that we have, we should have in mind that the ultimate plan is to achieve the purpose that the Lord has created us to do and we should always seek the help of the Holy Spirit to ensure that we are working according to the plans that God has set out for our lives.

THE FIVE PURPOSES THAT THE LORD HAS SET OUT FOR US

According to the book by Rick Warren, there are five purposes that we should always have in mind as we set out on our day-to-day activities. These are the core reasons that we have been created on this earth and we should never ignore any of them.

1. The centre of our lives - Worship

2. The community of our lives - Fellowship

3. The character of our lives - Discipleship

4. The contribution of our lives – Ministry or Service

5. The communication of our lives – Mission or Witnessing 

All in all, to discover our purpose, we should always seek the face of the Lord through prayers, the study of the word, meditation, and retreats. And if we have been working according to the footsteps of the Lord, we should be assured that even if we do not have a clear picture of where the Lord is leading us, we are heading in the right direction, in the direction of our purpose.

What views do you have on the topic of purpose? Have you discovered what purpose the Lord has for your life? Please share in the comments.

During the month of May, I spent a lot of time reading different genres of fiction to widen my perspective as a fiction writer. However, I was able to get out some time to study self-help, productivity, and spiritual books to ensure that I never lost track of what I was focused on attaining, and that is, becoming the ideal person that I would like to become. The books that I read in May were as enlightening as they were inspirational, and as a result, I would highly recommend that you look at the books to tap from the wealth of knowledge that I could sift out of them.

1.      SECRETS OF THE MILLIONAIRE MIND BY T HARV EKER

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This was the first book on finances and wealth creation that I read in a while. The book is written by a man who had made his fortune by opening a line of fitness stores and it has quite a few tips on wealth making and the difference in mindset between those that make and properly manage their wealth and those that do not.

The first thing that the author mentions is something that he refers to as a ‘money blueprint’. Part one of the book is fully dedicated to the analysis of this concept, which, in essence, can be explained as the thought and behaviours that we have around money which are formed by our childhood experiences, particularly in line with what our parents’ attitude towards money was. Some people, depending on their childhood experiences, usually ended up patterning their attitudes towards money similar to that of their parents, while some revolted against it. He spends his time explaining it and then stating, with examples, that no matter what money blueprint anyone may have, it can be changed.

Part two of the book deals with ‘wealth files’, in which he lists seventeen ways that rich people think and act differently from poor and middle-class people. Some of the seventeen points which resonated with me are:

· Rich people choose to get paid based on results. Poor people choose to get paid based on time.

· Rich people manage their money well. Poor people mismanage their money well.

· Rich people constantly learn and grow. Poor people think they already know.

· Rich people act in spite of fear. Poor people let fear stop them.

· Rich people focus on opportunities. Poor people focus on obstacles.

Some of the other tips that I got from the book are:

· Without passive income, you can never be free.

· The only time you are actually growing is when you are uncomfortable.

· Training and managing your mind is the most important skill you could ever own, in terms of both happiness and success.

· The secret to success is not to try to avoid or get rid of or shrink from your problems; the secret is to grow yourself so that you are bigger than any problem.

· If you want to get paid the best, you have to be the best.

Whilst the book had a vast array of knowledge to share, I have to say that I found some issues with it. For instance, I found that several parts of his text had a lot of new-age religion teachings that had to do with ‘The Secret’ sort of manifestation, aligning your vibrations with the universe, and other pseudo-science. In fact, each of the chapters ended with affirmations and after some time, I got tired of seeing the instruction to repeat “I have a millionaire mind!” repeatedly. There were also weird instructions such as the one to pick stray money off the road and shout, “Thank you, universe, for sending me money” and stuff like that and I found it to be a wee bit hilarious.

Also, I felt that there was just too much self-promotion in the book. Sure, a bit of self-promotion is not bad, but in each chapter, it appeared he found his way to keep hounding the fact that I could only get more if I registered for his courses and that what was written in the book was just the tip of the iceberg.

All in all, I would recommend it for those that are fresh in their study of books on finances and such. It does not have as much depth as some other books out there do, but it has bits of advice that could change the mindsets of some people out there.

2.      THE WORK/LIFE BALANCE MYTH BY DAVID J MCNEFF

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This book debunks the saying that life is divided into only work and life and lists seven aspects of our lives or slices that we all need to focus on to achieve harmony and balance in our lives.

The seven slices which the author lists are: family, professional, personal, physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual slices and the author lists practical ways how to balance these slices plus real-life examples and stories of how other people were able to achieve the same in their lives.

The author promises that if one could learn how to make use of what he refers to as ‘the seven slice method’, while it would not make the stressful elements of one’s life vanish, it will improve the ability of a person to manage such stressful situations.

Furthermore, the author guarantees that by giving adequate focus to all the aforementioned seven aspects of one’s life, one would be able to achieve happiness and success in one’s life.

Some tips that I got from the book were:

· When you have a sense of harmony, your daily life feels more manageable, and you enjoy it more.

· Many take their bodies for granted, yet the state of our body’s health has a direct impact on every other aspect of our lives. After all, the body is the vehicle that carries you in each slice of your life.

· We should check in with our emotions every once in a while for our own benefit, given how easy it is to overlook them, put them aside, and then wait for the day they either implode or explode.

· Slowing down to self-access in a real and tangible way allows you to pay attention to yourself.

· Agreeing to too many requests comes with a price - by devoting so much time to others, you may lose a sense of balance in your life. You must be able to say when enough is enough, and that starts with effectively managing time and setting boundaries.

It was a good book and I recommend it to all that are looking towards being productive even as they do all that they need in order to ensure that they do not put every other thing on the line just so as to achiev career success. By the time I was done with the book, I realised I needed to invest more in my spiritual and physical life, checking what I was eating and making sure that I carved out enough time to invest in my faith. And I was able to also use the book as a guide to teaching some others about the benefits of ensuring that all the aspects of their lives were properly balanced as well.

3.      WHEN GOD DOESN’T MAKE SENSE BY DR JAMES DOBSON

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This was the book that was studied in the book club I manage this month. It is by a Christian writer who examines what goes on when it feels as though God has forsaken us as Christians and how we can hold on to our faith during periods of pain and distress as Christians. It was a really insightful book that helped me discern a lot of spiritual things.

According to the author, almost every Christian, at some stage in life, reaches the betrayal barrier, in which it seems that the Lord has forsaken us when we are in moments of crisis and pain. He states it is not wrong to try to discern the reason why the Lord lets us pass through such hard times, but that we should have it in mind that the ways of the Lord are unsearchable and past finding out, and hence, we should lean not on our own understanding in trying to discern the ways of the Lord.

The author also states that trial and suffering are part of the human condition and that they can be essential for the development of character. Also, he believes that the main reason why a lot of Christians are unable to handle pain is that they have been inculcated into the doctrine that having steadfast faith in God guarantees a happy, carefree life. He believes that this is firmly wrong and that looking at examples from the biblical martyrs and apostles, it appears our faith almost guarantees us some form of abuse from the world.

Furthermore, he states the adversity principle, which is that without adversity, no soul properly matures, giving examples of people like Stephen Hawking, who were able to grow strong and achieve all that they could achieve despite their disabilities, some of them even claiming that the disabilities and the challenges they have faced, as a result, have made them strong enough to achieve the things that they were able to achieve.

Another thing that he notes, is that if just being a Christian was all one needed to live a perfect life, then the entire basis of God’s relationship with man would be undermined as people would seek friendship with Him to gain the benefits, rather than responding with a heart of repentance and love and that the most greedy of humans would be the first to draw to the Lord.

Again, he notes that we should not neglect the fact that sin can play a key factor in causing us the pain that we suffer. According to the author, it is not that God sits in heaven and determines to abuse those that makes mistake, but that He forbade certain behaviour because He knew that it would ultimately destroy its victims. He states examples of sexual sins and the chronic diseases that have killed millions around the world as a result.

Finally, the author states that we should not forget the transitory nature of life. If we remember that after this temporary life comes permanent rest in heaven, then life’s frustrations would not be so frustrating. He also states though the pain could be terrible here on earth, we must never forget that soon we will be reunited with the Lord in heaven when our tears will be removed forever.

Some points I noted in the book are:

· God is present and involved in our lives even when He seems deaf or in an extended leave of silence.

· God’s timing is perfect, even when He appears catastrophically late.

· For reasons that are impossible to explain, we human beings are incredibly precious to God.

· If we were given all that we wanted here on earth, our hearts would settle for this world rather than the next.

· The lord doesn’t always solve our problems instantaneously, and He sometimes permits us to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Eventually, we’ll all take that journey. But He is there with us even in the darkest hours, and we can never escape His encompassing love.

I would definitely recommend this book, not only for those suffering through hardship but to all people here on earth. There is a wealth of knowledge to be tapped from the book and it would go a long way in increasing your knowledge of the ways and the principles of the Lord, and why certain things here on earth are the way that they are. But the author says and is clear in stating that He is not out to get a cohesive answer to the problems of the world with his book, for no one can know the ways of the Lord.

4.      PROBLOGGER BY DARREN ROWSE AND CHRIS GARRETT

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This is a book written by two bloggers on how one can be able to prosper and commercialise the art of blogging. It focuses on blogging as a career path and not just as a hobby and gives various tips on how to get an audience, how to generate multiple streams of income through blogging, how to manage a community, and how to cooperate with other bloggers and so on. It is a splendid book for all that are hoping to get into blogging and I would recommend doing so as well as going on the blog ‘Problogger’ to get even more tips on blogging.

So what about you? What personal growth books did you study last month?

Being a productive, well-rounded person is hard. I don’t think there are enough people out there that are actually talking about this well enough.

It is difficult to get up in the morning, plan your day, and then try all that you can to manage your time to ensure that you optimally use your day, sometimes regardless of how you feel.

Sure, there are some days that you wake up and get a burst of energy that lasts for half the day in which you just want to perform, get all your tasks done on time, and genuinely will enjoy the feeling of grinding for a major chunk of the day.

For me, that happens about once a week, and often, I get that sort of energy after spending the previous day not performing to the best of my abilities and then wake up and, instead of acknowledging the guilt that is really the reason underlying my sudden burst of energy, I decide to overachieve the next day. Of course, one thing that I have learnt is that when I set out to over achieve, I do not end up being able to accomplish all that I have set out to do. As I explained in my other post on planning my days , I am almost a pro at setting out to do just too much in a day than is humanly possible.

However, most of the time, I wake up, and I hover around median energy, the sort of energy that I need to accomplish just enough sometimes, without particularly over romanticizing what I am about to do. So I wake up and I know I am going to work, I may or may not enjoy it, but I am going to enjoy the feeling of accomplishment that I get when I perform the tasks that I have set out for myself.

And then there are days I wake up and feel an intense headache just looking at my laptop, and feel as though I would rather do any other thing than actually sit down to work.

A few productivity books acknowledge days like this, the ‘hard days’, the days in which you do not have any atom of motivation left in you, in which your reserve of willpower is completely dried up, in which you want to do nothing but lie in bed and press your phone and watch movies and eat junk food, do any other thing than get up to do some work.

Sometimes, I have found that this also happens after a day of over exerting myself. I wake up then, feeling weary and sleep deprived, and then I look at my desk, and remember how hellish the other day was, how I worked myself up to a headache, and then just the thought of getting up and being as productive as I was the other day is enough to send chills running down my spine.

There are two things that usually happen to me when this sort of situation comes up. One is that I may actually laze about for a few hours before I finally guilt trip myself into working, or I remember people on YouTube, study streamers, who spend 12 hours daily doing nothing but sitting on their desks and studying, even one that was able to do so for an entire year, or the productivity gurus that I read books on who can achieve seemingly impossible feats and then I get hard on myself, and I force myself to get up and sit on that desk and open that laptop and work. I mean, I have read enough productivity books to know that ‘the grind never stops’ (but it can take some pauses though).

And then there are days it happens to me mid day. As a creative, there are bound to be times in which I get so frustrated with my writing that I just abandon it all and go to take a nap or go do something else to avoid staring at the jargon that I am conjuring up. But then, the problem is, the moment that I leave work that I am doing, it is terribly difficult to summon the energy to go back to continue, especially when I know that going back to it means going back to the hurdle that I know I am supposed to provide a solution for.

But that is just one of the problems. Because there is a reason there are scores of books on productivity and discipline and why, according to Market Research Blog, the self-help industry is worth over 10.5 billion dollars (according to a 2020 research). You see, this discipline is very difficult to accomplish and we humans are not very good at it.

I think one reason hard days are so, well, hard is because it is in those days that it seems almost impossible to practice delayed gratification. I mean, do you think it is easy to put away your phones and delete loved apps and movies so that you can actually work to become, you know, successful and accomplished in life? Of course not. You think there is anyone out there who, when given the choice between working out, getting up early, performing tasks, checking off to-do lists, being productive and just lying on the bed and streaming movies for hours on end, with the assurance of still ending up being successful would choose the former? I mean, the person would have to be half mad.

We all know that. We all have had situations in which we have had to let go of things that we would rather do just so that we can accomplish things that we have set out for ourselves. And we all know how much it hurts to do so. And one thing that I have learnt is that it hurts even more during the hard days.

I feel like one of the true reason it is so difficult for people to push through during the hard days, is because that you never really know whether you are even going to succeed, despite all that you put yourself through to ensure that you do. Have you ever had that moment, when, during the times in which you have lost all motivation, you find yourself thinking, well, this might not even work anyway, so why even bother? I know that I have.

There is a lot of difference between knowing that if you wait for sometime more and exercise will power, that you will most definitely get the second cookie and being made to exercise willpower on the grounds that even if you wait, there is no real assurance that you might get that second cookie.

This, I have found out, can be a major deterrent to even exercising discipline in the first place. I mean, it is really difficult to burn the midnight candle when there is always that knowledge at the back of your mind that you might not even end up being successful.

Are you reading on, hoping that I would provide some sort of tried and tested way of putting a permanent end to the pain and the uncertainty that is associated with discipline and delayed gratification, to push through the hard days? Because there is none. Trust me, if there were, I would have found it already somehow.

Sure, if you do your research, you might find some feel good articles or write-ups that would give you 200 things to do to ensure that you remain productive all the time and ensure that you succeed no matter what. But there is a chance that you might end up feeling guilty when you wake up some mornings and find that even after all you have done, you still have the hard days, the days when work feels like actual literal hell.

The point remains that this is a normal part of human existence, and we just have to deal with it. But there is one thing that I have found, and it is that, when you are properly equipped, it is easier for you to deal with it. Being properly equipped with all the right knowledge on habit formation, the ways to push through hard days, how to subdue the demon of procrastination and so on makes the difference between a person who gives in to his or her lack of motivation on hard days and the person who actually pushes through when such days come up.

This post is already long enough, and taking a proper deep delve into the different methods and systems used by the best productivity coaches will take quite a lot of words, so I think I will leave with just a few tips, nothing more.

First is this, realize that whilst there would be an uncertainty as regards success no matter how hard you work towards it, you can most definitely be assured of failure if you fail to put in the necessary work to achieve your dreams. Yes, sure, if we were in an ideal perfect world in which all things worked out just how we wanted things to go, we would not have to worry about failure after working hard. A good number of the time, we would face setbacks as we work towards our goals, but this should never hold us back from doing the needful in terms of our goals and dreams. And this should nevr be an excuse to give in during the hard days.

However, always remember to put the Lord into whatever you are working towards, so that at least, if you experience any setbacks, you can be sure that it is God’s instruction for you to keep pushing as it is not the right time to get the desired success and not a clear indication of the fact that you are not working in line with your purpose in life.

Again, I can never underestimate the importance of just starting. One thing that I have found is that even during the times in which I have felt as though I would rather do anything other than do a particular activity, the moment that I started, I would end up being able to do more work than I thought I would be capable of doing.

Of course, if it were easy to just start, a lot of us would have started doing the important things that we were supposed to do a long time ago, but it is very difficult to when you are not in the mood to. Some time later, I will write a blog post on the importance of making yourself bored enough that you have no other option than to work (and by this, I mean removing all distractions so that you can have nothing else to take your mind off doing the needful).

Another thing that is important is to understand your energy levels and how to optimize it so that you do not feel weak and lethargic when you are supposed to be active and productive. But this is something that I am still working on and researching on, so it would be a post for another day. One of the key methods that I have learned, however, is that understanding your sleep cycle, can help with keeping us at optimal energy and that we should all acknowledge the importance of knowing the effects that food, especially sugar and energy boosters like coffee, has on our bodies and energy during the day.

Another thing that I have noticed helps me to work for long periods of time is knowing the things that can keep me going. This includes music, snacks by my side, and being in a comfortable, well lit environment. A lot of productivity authors have found that the conditions of the environment that a person works in goes a long way in determining how willing the said person would be to do a particular work. Hence, that is why many people dedicate themselves to making sure that their work environment is as pleasant as possible and having all resources available within arm’s reach as they study.

Of course, there is so much more that comes with being able to exercise discipline and delay gratification. Otherwise, there would not be a million and one books on the topic. But if you are battling with starting on hard days, maintaining focus and delaying gratification, you can start with these little tips that have proven to work for me.