A JOURNEY THROUGH MY MIND AT NIGHT.

 

“Each of us has come into this world as to a new city, in which he had no share before his birth”-Philo

 

I have come to realize that in life, we are not really controlled by what goes on around us but rather what we allow into our heads, hearts and spirits because most of what goes on around us we came to meet and can do little to change.

I am not against the fact that our environment plays a very significant role in shaping our thought patterns, life choices and decisions and sometimes to a large extent determine the outcome of our lives. For example; a child raised in a slum would have very different life choices and thinking pattern to that of a child raised in a well planned estate.

However; it may happen that the child from the slum would end up living a more fulfilled and impactful life than his counterpart from the well planned estate. This brings to bear my opening statement, “we are not really controlled by what goes on around us but rather what we allow into our heads, hearts and spirits”. A child from a slum is likely to be exposed all manner of life choices and vices associated with slums. It would always be bare to him the disorderly and lawless nature of life lived in such environments, but what he decides to learn and adapt from his neighborhood would form his approach to life and determine the kind of head, heart and spirit he would develop. Someone may be open to a very orderly society but may turn out to be very disorderly and uncouth and this may be due to the choices one makes even though the environment plays a part in helping us make those choices.

Have you ever come across someone who reads a newspaper article, gets angry and begins to abuse the writer of the article and even the newspaper that published it or someone who after listening to a speech or an address by a political or public figure and all of a sudden raises insults on the speaker and criticizes every word and letter of the speech? Well, I believe you might have come across lots of people like that especially in this season that we are so close to general elections in Ghana.

The problem here is not in the article in the newspaper or the address delivered but the problem is with the understanding and mindset of the reader and the listener. What we see, read, listen or hear does not in itself create any effect on us but the meaning we derive from it.  I have come to understand that in the communication channel, there is the sender and receiver of a message. The sense the receiver makes from a message from the sender is largely based on the decoding mechanisms of the recipient.

In this age of information overload, the decisions we make from the information available to us are not based on the information we receive but the meaning or the sense we make out of the information available to us, so the information that we can access does not in itself determine or control the decisions we make on a daily basis but our decisions are largely based on our understanding of the accessible information. You may have access to information needed for decision making but if you don’t fully understand the information in your domain you would not be able to make any meaningful decision with it.

As individuals we have the sole right to determine what affects us and in what ways we allow things to affect us. Despite the fact that we are influenced by our environment consciously and unconsciously, we have a very special role to play in determining the outcome of our life. When we are able to do this then which part of the world we find ourselves would not necessarily determine the result of our existence.

J B Eshun © September, 2012.