Uncle Akin: To The Singles With Love: Be Humble (Part Six): Thus Far

I Believe I Can.

“Be able to decline a date so gracefully that the person isn’t embarrassed that he or she asked.” ― Marilyn vos Savant.

Keeping the House:

Glad to be back for yet another visit. There has been a lot of water under the bridge in the time-space of the last two visits. I have started a new group for those who want to be "woke." We've had our first session and presently waiting to get back our first exercise results before proceeding to our second session. I have great hopes for exciting burden lifting and yoke breaking times together.

The new group is born out of my visits here. Though I have not used that nomenclature, what we are doing here is basically gaining psychological maturity. That is, helping each other to the full development of our cognitive tendencies - woke. It takes maturity psychologically to be a person who responds to life rather than reacts. I hope you are feeling the vibes.

More to You than Sheer Knowledge:

It is not what we know that makes us. It is what we do. What we do is based on the wisdom gained from what we know, not just mere knowledge. Knowledge all on its own is useless. It is the wisdom gained that makes and gives it power.

That is what I am hoping we gain from these visits. I am not interested in filling your heads with knowledge. That will not help you. It will only puff you up and kill you. Rather, my interest is to educate your heart to become a better person who will take and lay hold of his or her own destiny.

That is all these visits are about. I can only hope you are feeling it. I can only hope we are meeting our set target and objective. Generally speaking, we each make decisions with our emotions (including men), then use our rationality to deceive ourselves that we made a rational decision.

Our Journey thus Far: Humility and Meekness

A key driver in more cases than not is the way the decision makes us feel. Fortunately, or unfortunately, not all that feels good is good. In the same token, not all that feels bad is bad—one of the immediate things we do to ensure adherence to what we believe is setting boundaries - defining personal space.

We touched a bit on boundaries on our first visit. We took things up a notch in our second visit by discussing what it means to be humble. We stated in no unclear terms, "You are not the center of the universe - be it God's, your parents, your whatsoever, and hopefully yours also."

If you get this right, it will save you from unnecessary troubles, depression, and many anxiety disorders, mental illness, which is on the rise and plagues so many people today. We also touched on the twin brother to humility - meekness, "power under control."

We closed this second visit by noting where the power - locus (center) of control - for humility and meekness resides. Anything other than an internal locus of control is not humility nor meekness. It can be "being humbled and or subdued," but surely not humility nor meekness.

Thus Far: Locus of Control

With this in mind, we came on to our third visit to build on the concept of "locus of control." In a simple, layman, every day, and streetwise sense and language, "locus of control" refers to the place, center, or location where the decisions, directions, and directives of one's life are made.

The more you believe this lies inside of you, the more responsible and powerful you are. The less you believe this lies inside of you, the less responsible and powerful you are. We drew an analogy with the concepts of "circles of concern, influence and commitment" taught by Stephen Covey.

We thus linked this to the first of the seven habits of highly effective people that Covey teaches: "Be Proactive." People don't just become humble or meek by chance. These are fruits. Fruits don't drop from the skies. Fruits come from seeds. The fruit is the result of sowing and causing it to be.

Thus Far: Neuroticism

We came on to our fourth visit wanting to answer the question, "why do people do what they do or don't even though they know better?"Here we noted, "Locus of Control" (LoC) is only one of the four (4) dimensions that define a person's disposition to life.

The other three being neuroticism, self-efficacy, and self-esteem. Merely knowing the importance of internal LoC does not guarantee we will live from there. These other three factors need to be present. Hence, we got on the trail. We have devoted our last three visits to Neuroticism, as it is pivotal.

Neuroticism is the tendency of a person to be emotionally unstable. Unlike Locus of Control, Self-efficacy, and Self-esteem, neuroticism is a personality trait. Hence, it is included in the "Big Five Personality Traits Model," along with Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Agreeableness.

In a sense, neuroticism is the extent to which a person's mental efficacy is obstructed by their emotions. We brought in Dr. Yemisi Adebowale, a Consultant Psychiatrist with the Health Service Commission of Lagos State, to assist us along this line.

Dr. Yemisi shared with us along the lines of staying mentally healthy, how mental illness is diagnosed, stress management, and coping techniques. When and if diagnosed, one needs to seek and use professional assistance.

In this seventh visit, we were supposed to move on to discuss Self-Efficacy. However, seeing the recap's length, it is only wise to close here and continue at the next visit.

Interlude:

Thanks for your time. Hope this helps. Let me know—a special welcome to all our new faces on the "Single and Blessed" community page. Thanks for being God's stamp of approval on what we do. Thanks for entrusting us with your time. I trust you are not regretting it in any way. Take a snapshot of your life today. Transformation is going to hit you like you've never seen before. Welcome home.

You know I love you. Keep occupying. Keep reigning. You have been activated to breakthrough. You have the mandate.