Grades or no Grades, Just Aim to Achieve Your Potential in the Candidacy of Life

By Mwangi  Wanjumbi – Newtimes B.S. CEO & Chief Consultant/Trainer

Congratulations to all the 2011 KCSE candidates for bravely facing the seemingly very mean examiner. It does not matter the grade that turned out eventually. But, it matters that our unfair system of evaluating our abilities has ranked you one way or the other.  Out of the 411,783 candidates only 119,658, a paltry 29% has acquired the power to continue reading on and on after attaining grade C+ and above.

Others have been rated as academic minnows. At the stroke of the pen, 71% of the candidates have sadly reached their end of the academic pyramid. Ironically, the same continues becoming sharper as the filtering continues, into the candidacy of life. However, you should not worry as we will learn shortly.

But first, we need to realize that this is an unfair world. We are all striving for something in every day of our lives. The difference lies in how we perceive what we are striving for. Every time I am commencing our 3 day Staff Motivation and Capacity Building Training programs, I initially make a few statements, which are later vindicated by the trainees.  In fact, I will right away share one with you. Without any hesitation, I let training delegates to know that we are our own greatest enemies.

This is so because based on the psychology of learning we have decided to get stack on the stage whereby, ‘we do not know, and we do not even know that we do not know.’ Then, and this is quite unfortunate, we are always pretending that we know. Thus, we do not even want to know more. (And many, who seek to know more, do it just for the sake, without intentions of changing or applying it in any way).That in fact is a dangerous situation of ignorance. From that perspective, all our worldly problems continue sometimes without any inhibitions.

Out of that ignorance, we develop entrenched attitudes on Money, Work and Wealth as well as other worldly desires. Out of ignorance, we end up putting all our priorities wrong. In fact, we ignorantly put the cart before the horse. Yes, we open our eyes, see the world and worldly things and lose our reasoning power. We put all these things ahead of us and start chasing them right, left, centre and all over. Through chancing, some are able to maneuver their way out of this web. Others are not. Why?

We refuse to see with our minds. We refuse to envision what we would want in life and work out what it would take. We refuse to accept that the power to achieve what we would want in life is right within us. Indeed, we almost always choose to ignore our intrinsic motivation – The power within.

As for the candidates, the stories of future success are now being told. I was told the same stories when I was the age of my own children. In fact, some of the stories led me very astray, until later recollecting myself and seeing the light using my own mind rather than my eyes. Moreover, we have in our own house (not home for those who know the distiction); two public universities bound candidates, who happen to be fraternal twins (boy and girl). I know the stories they are being told by their rika and neighbours too. I am also aware of the stories told by their aunties, uncles and the rest of the society.

My own story to all the candidates is fairly short. We are no longer exclusively living in the collectivist society, whereby we are all supposed to think and act in harmony. Call it copy pasting of one another if you like. Rather, we have passively become more individualistic than ever before. In a seemingly unfair and continually competitive world, it is more about me or you as a person than us or we.

In this ever competitive world therefore, it is about assessing ourselves and determining that which can ‘naturally’ make us ‘continually’ gain “unfair” advantage over others. Indeed, it is more about what personal competencies that we each consistently bring to the competitive world. Why say this?

Grades or no grades, our maker neither made any garbage nor mediocre achievers. Each of us is a masterpiece of creation and is definitely good at something. That is what we should each determine, work on and persistently build into our competitive advantages.

In other words, we must refuse to authenticate the views of one, Lucian Levy Bruhil whose ideas I interacted with during lessons in philosophy. This European philosopher of yester years insinuated thus, “Africans are primitive and illogical thinkers, who believe in magic and occult forces.” Really?

Inevitably, we must make this guy look like a big joker, only through putting the cart where it rightfully belongs. Indeed, we must each consistently use the power within to drive the outside. Consequently, we must gear to reap our best in life. Yes indeed, but, only through our own unique competencies, irrespective of whether there are grades or no grades. Do have a joyful week, whatever the grades in the candidacy of life.

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