SOME people beat themselves down for their inability to do particular things.
As I grew up in rural Binga, one unique thing about me is that I naturally sleep late.
I didn’t want to accept that about myself.
I remember hearing the frightening night owls hooting.
As a kid, fear would grip me as I turned in my blankets.
Everyone would be asleep; I could literally hear their breath and snoring.
As a child, I asked myself: Am I normal? Why do others sleep easily while I struggle?
As I grew into a teenager, I found solace by listening to the radio.
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It was so funny — I knew radio presenters who came between 12 midnight and 3am.
I was left to interact with radio.
With my rural mind, I began to imagine what the studio might look like.
With radio, you have to use words to form an imagination. I grew to love radio because it was my companion in life.
My teachers made my life even harder.
Almost every Friday, I was punished.
Most people thought I was a bad boy because much of my life was spent in detention and punishment for late coming.
I went through a lot of beatings, and that made me feel very abnormal.
My late father and mother did not really understand me or my nocturnal make-up.
I remember, as I grew older, my mother said I was the biggest stress to her when I was a small baby.
I would be awake all night long.
At that time, she wanted to sleep, but I was awake. I wanted to play. I cried at night. I was a disturbance to everyone.
When I got married, I realised that everyone — including my wife — were “normal beings” with normal sleeping routines.
I constantly questioned my sleeping habits.
As a kid, I could not embrace myself.
I would beat myself emotionally because I was not fitting into the mould.
I remember when I travelled to Mexico for a Christian Authors and Publishers conference, I shared a hotel room with a gentleman from Ghana.
He complained about the lights that were on almost all night.
My late sleeping patterns annoyed him.
He hated my lifestyle to the extent that he tried to bring scientific reasons why having lights on at night keeps the body tired and the mind unrelaxed.
All in all, people see me as abnormal.
There was a time when I thought I was not a good human being.
But there came a time when I accepted that I am an adequate human being.
I don’t need to blend in. I need to be me!
Difference
We should accept that we are wired differently.
We are built differently. Our noses don’t look the same.
Our heights are different. The skin colour, tone and texture are totally different.
So, we should find ways to co-exist in our disparities.
We should not be enemies because we dislike who others are.
Someone’s difference becomes your advantage.
What someone has might be something you don’t have. Such is life.
You don’t know everything
You should accept that you don’t know everything.
That thought alone helps you learn from other people.
The moment you think and feel you know everything, you fall into a ditch of not listening to others.
At times, some people suffer from what is called the Dunning-Kruger effect.
This is a cognitive bias where people with limited knowledge or skill in a specific domain mistakenly believe they are far more competent than they actually are.
Other people’s power
One should also accept that other people have unique and different abilities.
Other people have the power you don’t have.
This could be innate power or creative abilities.
Your personal abilities
Never underestimate your personal abilities.
God created you with special and specific traits that can be used to create value for the world.
Your personal abilities or intelligences make you stand out from the crowd.
We are in a noisy world that wants to imitate and copy what is happening, but you should embrace your personal abilities.
Mistakes
As we grow, as we explore life, as we experiment with possibilities — we make mistakes.
Some stop, and that kills inventions.
Others continue to make mistakes and stumble on greatness at unlikely times.
School always punished me for mistakes.
That messed up my neuropathways and paradigms.
I was made to think that for me to be successful, I must be a perfect being. That is not true.
Weaknesses
One thing people don’t want to accept about themselves is their weaknesses.
Naturally, we are taught to be strong and never show our vulnerable side.
We are human, and we do fall. We do fail.
As John C Maxwell would say: fall forward. Fail successfully.
The need to learn / change
Now we know that we are different. We don’t know everything.
There is someone who knows what we don’t know.
There are people more powerful than us, and we are powerful as well.
However, we are fallible. We fall, we fail because we make mistakes and we have weaknesses. What do we do now?
The best you can do is learn to capitalise on the above and acquire wisdom, knowledge, and information.
- Jonah Nyoni is an author, speaker, and leadership trainer. Follow Jonah on Twitter @jonahnyoni. WhatsApp: +263 772 581 918
