What Direction are you facing?

What Direction Are You Facing

       Upon seeing a four directional star, what naturally comes to mind is the four cardinal points, viz; north, south, east, west, with the east to west outlining the suns daily passage. But beneath all these, a lesson is to be learnt. What direction are you facing? Forward, backward, or sideways? Forward means just what it means, and backwards also means what it means; living in the past, sideways means living in the present moment. An understanding of what these directions mean is essential for analysis of your current position and future attainments

       Facing the forward direction simply means one thing, moving towards the future at full blast, irrespective of what may have happened in the past, or whatever it is that may be happening around them. They are strong proponents of the saying “tough times don’t last but tough people do”. Their dreams are well laid out before them and they wake up to each day with a purpose in mind, time is no joke with them. They don’t doubt themselves, their abilities and their beliefs. They never give ear to hearsays. They give their best to everything and get the best out of life. “Yes we can!” you can always hear them say. You can call them the ‘yes’ people.

      Looking sideways is you living in the moment. There exists two major directions when looking sideways (unless you want to discuss advanced physics) – right and left. The right side will be the positive side; the good things about you, around you, the good things that you have achieved. Before delving into this, I’ll like to make a point; living in the now may prevent you from seeing the great future ahead of you.

      These people are easily waylaid by pride in; 1. The good things about them, this blinds them to their deficiencies and hence they don’t get better, they are full of themselves; 2. They are full of past glory, ancient achievements, never striving for the unimaginable future glory but seem content with the whole world knowing about them; 3. They are beguiled by the good things surrounding them- their parents’ wealth, their good luck etc, this blinds them to reality, and overconfidence which leads to underestimation of life’s many challenges.

       Someone once said that every 5 years, he would destroy every success he has achieved over the years, not destroy them literally of course, but get them out of his sight and head; all plaques, awards etc will be taken off the wall so that he can start again with the intention of surpassing every of his achievements. This helps to renew your zeal instead of becoming satisfied with them all.

       The left side on the other hand represent everything around you that will make you not go forward and that if you explain it to anybody, they would understand and even tell you a heartfelt ‘sorry’. Your humble background is nothing but a lesson in humility, and to teach you that life gives ‘it’ to only those who demand for it. So get that out of your head now! You have no excuse, if you see yourself giving too many excuses for what you should have done; busy rationalizing when you know you should have done what was right. These people use words like “you don’t understand” a lot, it’s just a ruse because they know that when they tell you, it will sound somehow (stupid) as it comes out of their mouth. They concentrate on the forces against them instead of the forces for you. Let me let you in on a little secret; you have this super mystical ability, whatever you focus on gets bigger, and that which you neglect becomes smaller. So if you focus on your weaknesses and inadequacies, they become bigger while the things that matter – your strength gets smaller because you don’t take cognizance of it. So also if you focus on your strengths, no matter how small it may seem to you, it will become bigger and those weaknesses that appear so daunting will diminish in your very sight till they become inconsequential.

       I don’t think looking backwards needs any introduction, its despondence and fear of and for the future; Clinging to the tendrils of the past. As far as i know, nobody can look up and down at the same time, neither look forward and backwards. So looking backwards is the opposite of everything that is forward.lol. But seriously its refusing to love because you have been hurt before, refusing to climb because you have fallen before, refusing to try at all for fear of failure, not knowing that to FAIL means to get your First Attempt In Learning. A Yoruba adage says, “ti eshin ba da ni, a n tun gun ni”. Meaning that if a horse falls you down while riding it, you climb it again. People who face backwards never achieve anything in life, not because they can’t, but because they never tried.

       So, what direction are you facing? Remember the best form of foresight is hindsight laced with insight. If anything happened to you in the past, either ‘fate’ or as a result of your methods or for whatever reason, find out why what went wrong, what you did wrong,  learn whatever lesson to learn from it and move on! To the ‘rightists’, don’t ever get satisfied with what you have or who you are, just like the Pepsi logo, ‘Dare for more!’. To the ‘leftists’, i daresay all you need is one reason to go forward. You may have a thousand and one reasons not to take that forward step, but all you need is just one reason to go on. Once you find it, hold on to it firmly and never let it go. To those looking back, there is something for you. Ask yourself this simple question, “What is the worst that could happen?” Paint the most gruesome picture your mind can create, then tell it,” Is that your best? I’m going to be the best of me there ever was and be happy doing it and if that is the worst that could happen; then bring it on!”

So I ask you again, what direction are you facing?