In the short but eventful life I have been graced to have so far, I have really struggled with the meaning of these two words. Accept and be contended. Allow me to start from from somewhere close to the beginning.
I view myself as a pathfinder. What do I mean? Since I was a young girl, I found myself inclined in the things that most of my family and mates hadn’t done or simply didn’t find any joy in doing. This gave me a very rough time (and still does sometimes) because I couldn’t understand just why I couldn’t follow the clear paths that had been cut out for me. In school, I loved literature. Some of my classmates did too, but with me, the love was so deep it was almost personal. If I failed in a literature test, it felt like an insult to my own personality. Well, that and many more things about me made me a regular recipient of the question “Why don’t you accept life and be contended with it?”.
Well, here is the thing. I didn’t know why I was never contended with what life had given me. I had accepted it, yes. Though, the being contented part, well… Now there, we had a problem. It irked me, you see. Every time I saw girls my age doing all the stuff girls my age ought to have been doing while my heart was stuck on researching on things like The personality tree and How to manage traumas.
Where am I leading to with this story apart from the fact that I was a weirdo growing up? Hold on, today’s lesson is about me. One day, I got to understand why I was never contended with ‘my’ life even though I had accepted it.
First, I had not asked for the life I had. I had never knelt down and prayed, “Oh dear Father, take my parents away so that I can be raised by my relatives and give me a brain that will always want things that are beyond my age. Oh, also don’t forget to add a slim frame to the list so that I’ll always look malnourished no matter how much I eat. Thank you”. I don’t remember any such kind of prayer leaving my lips… Not once. Therefore, anyone asking me to be contended with those things while I knew I could change them was just absurd to me. Do you get what I’m saying?
I accepted that I couldn’t get my parents back, neither could I force my brain to be any more normal. I accepted and actually loved my body as it it, with it’s lean frame and all… But to be satisfied? No
I believe that we have the right and the chance to change anything and everything about our lives. If we can’t change it physically then we can change it mentally by how we view life. Though, for a person to force you to stay in a situation that you don’t want just to prove that you are content and grateful for life is just absurd.
Never let anyone make you feel guilty for wanting more. Refuse to apologise for wanting better and dreaming bigger. Stop saying sorry because of expecting more from your own life. Why should you always walk in eggshells when it comes to wanting to grow financially? People, especially those who once helped you to a certain point in life will tend to want to make you settle for their level. Few people ever want to help you so that you can raise above them. Any hand that held you up is just meant to be a stepping stone, not a cornerstone! Step on it and move to where you wanna be!
It isn’t a crime to buy a more expensive car than the uncle who sponsored your education. It is not a sin to build a bigger house than your family in law. Stand up and tell them, Yes, I know I found you here, but I wasn’t staying for long. I have places I gotta go! A tree’s height isn’t determined by the height of the person that watered it! Why should your success be limited to the ego of those who sponsored you?! Stand up and go to your destiny. When a hunter nurses an eagle with a broken wing, should it offend him when it’s wing is healed and it decides to soar the skies? Will he call it ungrateful? Will he say that the eagle bit the finger that fed it?
You are a bomb and just because you have been inert for too long doesn’t mean you won’t explode. You are a star, and just because you are down here on the dust doesn’t mean one day you will not soar the skies. You have to learn to be true to your nature no matter how many people it will offend. Never let people’s fragile egos limit your success. You don’t have to be contended with situations that you are not truly satisfied with. Misery loves company and when you deny it , it gets bitter. People will want to discourage you because they were too lazy to fight for their dreams or just don’t have any.
I want you to sit down with yourself today and write down everything about your life that was forced on you. The things you downplay about yourself because you don’t want to be labelled a show off or a weirdo like me. The talents you set aside because they told you that talents don’t pay or that you weren’t good enough. Those things that you only do at the privacy and secrecy of your bedroom or bathroom ( like singing in the shower) because you … Weuh, what will people say? How much of your life is actually yours? How much of the choices you make are actually your choices? How much of yourself is you?
Walk your life like you are a king/queen… Or like you don’t care who the heck is on the throne!
Peace!
Blackstartales 