Continued from Part 2
3. Poor
Associations: The people you relate with
constantly tend to influence your mental habits: Evil communication corrupt
good manners. Who are your buddies? Are they deep thinkers? Do they talk
reasonable or sensible talk? If your answer is no, it may mean you may have to
change your associations: Seek the company of thinkers. Listen to their tapes,
videos or read their writings if you cannot reach them physically. It will
influence you positively. You will start developing thinking habits and you
will be on your way up.
4.
Sexual Fantasies: When your fantasize
about sex, there will be no space in your brain for productive thinking. A mind
preoccupied with sex thoughts soon become a sex toy! You become a servant to
your sense of sight. Every woman that walks past becomes a thought project!
Friend this makes your imagination stifled and you only think in a
unidirectional pattern. It stifles your positive creativity and mental power.
You need to break free from the habit of sexual fantasies otherwise you remain a
fantastic non-achiever! No genuine, original results to show forth in your
lifetime. The truth is that the habit of sexual fantasy reduces a man’s time and
mental power for productive contemplation. Sometime ago, in the city of Ohio
a prominent judge, respected citizen, family man, wound up on the front page of
The Akron Beacon Journal and in prison, as a child molester. He was interviewed
and he had this to say, He described a “process” – he said, “One day, years
ago, I was out watering my lawn, a little girl in a sundress went by and for a
fleeting millisecond I thought about what it would be like with her – then, of
course, I pushed it from my mind. But a year or so later, at a mall, another
little girl, and I held the thought for maybe a minute.” He went on to mention
another incident, 15 or 20 minutes of thought. “Then one day,” he said, “I woke
up and found it was all I was thinking about. For days, it dominated my
thoughts. Then I did it.”
5.
Poor
Reading Culture: A renowned and influential senator
in bible days named Daniel, made a statement centuries ago, he said ’’ ... I Daniel
understood by books’’. A poor reading culture is a major bane to developing the
power of contemplation. You must prop yourself to develop this habit. As
physical exercise is to the muscles, so is reading to the mind. When you read,
you exercise your mind, and an exercised mind result in a progressively
exercised life. A man, who does not read, gathers dust on his mind. With time
all sorts of useless and vain ideas grow in his mind, which he eventually
manifests. Learn to develop a reading culture. Read good books, good magazines.
Read Articles that stimulate your mind to think and you will improve your mental
power.
6.
VI. Low Self Image:
how do you see yourself? What mental picture do you have of yourself? The
picture that you carry in your mind of yourself is your self-image. Do you always
see yourself as a nobody? Do you always think you are a no-good? If you do;
that thought pattern is stifling your power of contemplation. There is no human
being that does not have something good to offer the world. That low or poor
self- image has to be worked upon by you. You need to change your self- image.
Go get information to help you do that. Once your self-image improves, it will help
you enter into a world of positive contemplative power.
7.
VII.
Low Self-esteem: Closely related to low self-image,
is low self-esteem. Low self-esteem has to do with how you ’’feel’´ about
yourself. When you feel ’’good’’ about yourself, it enables your contemplative
power to be stimulated. One of the benefits to feeling good about yourself is
that it helps your thinking process internally. Great men and achievers have
found ways to constantly feel good about themselves. You must find your own key
to unlock this “feel good” feeling, practice it:, it is vital to your overall success in life.
Event
and people may make you feel low but understand that it is up to you to work on
feeling good. Learn to feel good in spite of your position, predicaments and
painful perspective that others may have about you. Poor self- esteem blocks
the flow of contemplative power and a block of this power, prevents you from
getting the ideas to make productive progress. The Holy writ said ’’ ..let no
man despise your youth’’.
8.
Religious
Mind Set: A number of folks have a mindset
that ascribes all responsibility to God. They think because God is omnipotent,
He runs everything on the earth. But this is an error in scriptural
application. God has given man dominion to run the earth. However we can engage
God’s intervention via prayer; this does not relieve men of his duties on the
earth. God created man, put him in the garden and asked him to dress it and
keep it. In other words, God expected man to put all of his resources to work,
physical (to dress it) and mentally (to keep it) in order to make the garden
fruitful. Productivity always involves the physical and the mental. One without
the other will not yield desired results. There is a spiritual side to it.
However to think it is only spiritual is to become religious in your mind set.
While you can get direction from the spiritual to know what to do (as in Adam),
God then expects you to put your mental and physical resources which he has
given you to bring about productivity in the job which he has shown you to do. So
to engage the innate power of contemplation, you must break free from religious
mind set and play your role as a man.
Dr Edugbo, O.P.
is a medical practioner by profession, and has a ministry towards men. Over the
years, he has been involved in numerous medical, church, parachurch,
non-governmental and corporate organizational work and development. He conducts
consultancy, speaking and training engagements for churches and corporate
organizations.
You
may reach him on 08130105533, pauledugbo@gmail.com
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