DAY 9 OF 100DAYS SELF-REINVENTION SERIES - Seduced by Consciousness -3

Your thoughts are like the artist's brush. They create a personal

picture of the reality you live in.” — Sydney Banks.

In one of several stories in his book “Seduced by Consciousness,” Jack Pransky tells an experience in Japan about a time a Tsunami was to happen. As people suspected that electricity would be cut off for a season, many flocked to the supermarket to buy foods like “granola” that did not require electric cooking or preservation. When he got to the Supermarket, the checkout queue was spilling out into the streets. He entered the supermarket expecting that he would spend so long there as he was preparing to pick up his “granolas” and join the queue. Somehow, instead of coming out to join the queue of people queuing onto the streets, he decided to just wander deep into a different section of the supermarket. To his amazement, he saw a check-out till with no customer at the end of the supermarket. He just went to the till operator, paid, and came out through the entrance with people queuing unto the streets.

Many things in our lives are like this experience. Once we read a story, we are frightened by the thought that this, too, will happen to us. We are blind to other possibilities that could exist in the circumstance. We do not even try anymore. Our consciousness has placed a limitation on our ability to explore other options. Guess what? The tsunami did not occur as forecasted. There was no destruction.

What does it mean to be seduced by consciousness? To take an awareness that you have about an issue and make it your own reality. The purpose of this chapter is to see how we can avoid the subtle suggestions of seductive thoughts that work against us. It is not a bad thing to be seduced, but we want to be seduced by something that we desire, not what we do not desire. One impact of hanging out with the right crowd is that you get seduced by the community energy generated by the company. If you walk with wise people, their wisdom will rub off on you; if you work with foolish people, their foolishness will rub off on you equally.

Several years ago, I went into business for myself, and things became really tough. Gradually, rather than think my way out of the mess, my friends who were equally running similar entrepreneurial ventures started converging in my small office to talk about the then-Nigerian president and how his leadership was hindering us all from succeeding. They say, “Birds of the same feather flock together,” so it did not take time for friends with struggling start-up businesses to gather at my office every morning to complain. One of the reasons they converged in my office was that I was the only person in the bunch who could afford a newspaper every morning. Prior to this association, I would spend my idle moments reading books that would keep my hope alive.

Gradually, this association of unproductive entrepreneurs grew and grew, and we were saying highfalutin words like “We will take over the government,” “We will organize a coup,” and on and on. It was so real in my thoughts that all Nigerians were going through what we were going through. I have gradually forgotten the inspiring stories of hope that I read, which kept me alive.

One day, I could not make the daily idle meetings; I stayed at home and re-read one of my inspiring motivational books again. My eyes opened. What am I doing with this bunch and all these idle talks of overthrowing a military head of state? How in the world did I come to think that everyone is going through what I am going through? People are working.

Some businesses are collapsing, while some are increasing in leaps and bounds. I have a choice to either close the business and go look for a job or put life into the business, but to sit and just chatter away my time did not do me any good. Besides, who told me that a bunch of around seven unemployed young adults could overthrow a military head of state? As I thought about the time I had lost in these unproductive meetings, I was very angry with myself.

Idle, foolish talk will just deepen my misery. I do not even have enough money to pay for my transport to Abuja (the seat of Government), let alone buy a bullet. If I were the most financially liquid of the bunch, you can imagine that none of the naysayers could afford a bus fare to Abuja either. It was just idle talk that helped us get seduced to think that everyone else was idle. If the police were to arrest us for idle, foolish talk, I bet that none of us had money to get bail. You see, in every economy, some people work. Even in economies where unemployment is 50%, it means 50% of the population is working. You can choose to associate with the consciousness of those working and become eventually employed yourself or with the 50% nay Sayers and remain there and think that everyone is there with you.

Even today, many of us remain deluded by the consciousness that “nothing is working”, but the likes of Dangote, Jim Ovia, Tony Elumelu, and several thousands of their type are working every day and increasing their market share. Several businesses are thriving, and people are getting hired every day. The other day, I met a young man in a restaurant in Akure, and he told me he had no job; when I asked him what he studied and the firms to which he had made job applications, he said there was no need as there are no jobs. I said to him, you are seduced by the wrong consciousness. People are getting hired every day; others are leaving the country and getting lucrative jobs abroad; you can't sit at home and expect that the job will drop from the sky, not with this kind of seduction.

Back to my story with my deluded friends. I made up my mind that from the next morning, my office would cease to be a meeting point for aimless talk. I got to my office the next morning and put a small piece of paper at the front of the door saying that “visitors are only welcome from 6 pm.” once I entered the office, I locked myself inside. Of course, by 6 pm the office will be closed. Were my friends angry with me? They were very angry, and some vowed never to talk to me again. Did it bother me? Not at all. I have always believed that you cannot argue with results. My results didn't take long. I was back to my reading and meditation practices; my business improved, and within a year, I made my first business trip to the United States, spent 11 days in the US, and returned to Nigeria. Those angry friends came back wanting to find out what I was doing differently. By the books I read, I had changed my consciousness – I have become seduced by a new kind of consciousness.

"Man's chief delusion is his conviction that there are causes other than his own state of consciousness." -?Neville?Goddard

Today, many are stuck on social media, meditating on every evil video that speaks of Armageddon getting so close. I am sorry, but your experience is a self-created reality. Armageddon isn't coming tomorrow; we are finding new solutions to many of the problems that have bedeviled mankind. Get books that inspire, associate with people who elevate your consciousness, and take deliberate steps to improve your life. Solomon said in the Bible, “The sluggard said there is a lion (unemployment) in the way and refused to go out.” But he used the word sluggard because others who lived in a different consciousness were working, and this fellow was seduced by a wrong consciousness. There was no lion anywhere. Others went to work and passed the very same route; they sent speculative CVs to companies with even no vacancies and were hired.

In the course of some of my public speaking engagements today, I have come across young, energetic graduates who are wasting the very best energy of their lives.

It may be very tough for you today, I know; I have been there, I have been in “the valley of death” a few times; it could be HOPELESS, but don't make yourself more hopeless. A change in consciousness is the first thing that will take you out of that valley of hopelessness. Sometimes, it doesn't cost any money to make a change. For some, it may just be reducing time spent on social media from eight hours to 2hours per day and spending the rest of this wasted time reading books that build hope and courage. For others, it just may mean changing your current abode, and for the rest, changing the crowd that you hang out with. I wish you a positive seduction of consciousness.

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