It is King Solomon who said that a man is as he/she thinks. What has this to do with us Kenyans? A people who are yearning to fix leadership, educational system, infrastructure, food security, corruption among other impeding challenges.
As much as we are considering several answers to our challenges, I don’t know whether we have ever seriously thought about our thinking. As the challenges that we are dealing with seem to be growing and multiplying with the passage of time - are the results of our collective thinking.
Thinking is a complex process – that is consciously or unconsciously on going in every one of us, every moment. The speeches we give the actions we take, our aspirations and dreams are engineered by the mind thought process.
Indeed how we think determines how we live. In the short story, "The Snow in Chelm," by Isaac Singer one encounters unbelievable people, who covered a tank with water when they sported a moon only for it to stolen before day break. When snow fell their leaders told them that it was a treasure of silver, pearls and diamonds which they we unable to collect before day break - they lived waiting for another snow fall to make a fortune! their live of misery and poverty to be history.
The Chelmites villagers neglected to think for themselves. They become reflectors of the thinking of their foolish leaders, they lived a lie. We need to be thinkers, going beyond accepted opinions, ask new questions, think outside the box, go down new paths. Isaac Newton is a good example – for centuries apples used to fall down wards, but none dared to ask why? Till Newton who discovered the law of gravity.
Pause for a moment. What are you thinking about? Pause a gain, go through the opinions you are holding about other people, your motives, words you have spoken few minutes ago and the actions you have taken; do you realize the threads of thinking running through them?
You can silence somebody from speaking, close the ears from hearing and the eyes from seeing; but you can’t do the same to one who is thinking. It is the person who chooses what to think about.
Yes, thinking demands that we keep on changing our mind as evidence demands it. For, the only thing that a person owns to oneself is his or her thoughts. What a privilege! Thus the apostle Paul admonished the Philippians in his letter: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praise worthy – think about such things.”
Paul is powerfully and eloquently telling us that we too need to decide what to think about. For us to move out of our present deplorable status as a nation - the answer lies within our mind – to choose carefully what to think about.
John Ratey, a neuropsychiatric at Havard University says that genes do not make a man gay, or violent, or fat, or a leader. Genes merely make proteins.... We humans are not prisoners to our genes or our environment. We have a free will.
While scientist recognize that genes contribute to our personality traits - genes do not entirely dictate what we chose to do.
Let us examine this – from where hence our thought comes from? You think about what you see, what you hear, what you read, what you feel, what you touch, what you test, yes what you belief in.
Our senses are the doors and window of our mind. Our beliefs are the sum product of all our senses. What do you belief in? A story is told of a man who stole a horse, he was caught some few miles a way the following day. On being asked why he said: “The sunset trapped me here - for my day of rest and worship.” To this man there was nothing wrong with stealing, but everything was at stake with his worship! What are your beliefs?
So many of us take for granted what speak about other people, what we watch, listen to, how and who touches us, the places we visit, what we read – but here lies the windows into our mind. We need to make careful and determined choice on these things, yes most of the time this calls for an audacious sacrifice to make the right and informed choice.
In my life time I have met people who wonder about my dos and don't s, likes and dislikes. Yes, I wonder about theirs too. What we usually forget is that we’re the products of our choices. Which in turn feeds our mind and versa versa?
So the next time you're aspiring and perspiring towards a certain goal, whether as a nation or as an individual before anything ask yourself whether your have set your thinking for the same.
Take the case of tribalism, corruption, impunity, cheating, immorality which are among the vices that are indiscriminately rampant in our society – what informs them? How can they be corrected? Isn't it a cause-effect relationship between thinking and moral living?
Jeremiah had this answer to the Israelites when they were going through the Kenya situation – a new heart and a new mind.
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