Let nobody make you feel small

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. Who among us will quickly forget the legendary iconic former President of South Africa? For a lot of diverse reasons, and for a lot of people, Mandela is unforgettable. He was imprisoned for 27 years. Harsh conditions and degrading treatment he endured for long. For the apartheid regime and some mean and powerful individuals, the goal was to belittle him and diminish his efforts.

But Mandela’s spirit and sense of purpose remain unshaken. He refused to be broken by the system that was designed to make him feel worthless. Instead, he used his time to strengthen his resolve and maintain his dignity. His ability to rise above personal insults and challenges and his focus on the greater good eventually led to the dismantling of apartheid and his election as South Africa’s first Black president.

Mandela stood his ground in the face of persistent emotional and physical pummelling by his adversaries. His story is a powerful testament to how you too can maintain self-worth and integrity despite attempts to belittle or oppress. Has your path ever crossed some people in life who try to make you look small, worthless, and irrelevant? Have you been shouted down and shut up by friends and family members who strove to make you feel small and inconsequential about yourself through their words or actions toward you? People will do to you only what you let them. Anytime you experience disparaging behaviours from people, let it be known that you probably have some virtues and values that your harassers covet but do not possess. The more they come at you, the more you should refuse to be cowed down. Thus, this week, I offer this encouragement to someone through this treatise: Let nobody shut you down, shut you up, or make you feel small as you travel in the journey of life.

I heard these uplifting words from America’s current Vice President Kamala Harris when she was striving to become the country’s first female and first Black Vice President of the world’s biggest economy. “I have been told many times during my career things from “oh, you are too young, it’s not your turn…they are not ready for you. I’ve heard that many times over the course of my career.  But I didn’t listen. I will encourage anyone who’s been told that to not listen. Don’t be encumbered by the inability of others to see the potential of who you are.” My friends, let nobody shut you down, shut you up, or make you feel small as you travel in the journey of life. If people who try to make you look worthless don’t know your worth, they have no eyes to see great value. Remember that a blind person cannot design a map.  If some people don’t appreciate your worth, it doesn’t mean you are worthless. Be angry not with people who know not your value. That they do not know your value does not make you valueless. Where your worth is not appreciated; walk away with your precious worth. There are hordes of beings out there warming up to celebrate you, not desecrate you. You have worth. You are too wonderfully packaged to be carelessly unwrapped. You are too beautifully made to be treated ugly. You are too expensively put together to be dealt with cheaply.

No surveillance technique or technology can detect human prowess and talents. Science and technology have not yet developed how cameras can capture the indwelling human abilities, skills, and potential of created beings. For science and scientists, this appears to be a quixotic quest. Any scientific submission claiming such is a grandstanding guesswork. Technology can only capture the face and inner anatomical images of the organs in the body of a talented man.  That is all today’s technology can do. But how then do people know what God has naturally endowed you to do?  You tell them and you do what you claim you can do. Telling people about your strength, you are not flatly arrogant or falsely arrogating, you are wise. There are people who need your skill, and they may not know you’ve got it. Instead of letting men shut you down, stand on a higher ground announcing your worth. Trumpet your worth and let the world hear you. Announce yourself! Publicise yourself! Showcase your resume! Present your case and show forth your argument!

There are about 9,000 species of birds the world over. And unfortunately, many of them are in a cage. One of the worst experiences of life is when a man or woman created and destined big and bountiful, and fat and flourishing remains small. People in this category are like a bird in a cage. Break that cage. Someone out there needs your skill. A government out there needs your skill. A president out there needs your skill. A governor out there needs your talent. A business magnate out there needs your ability.

A nation out there needs your skill set. By not promoting yourself, you are demoting yourself. It is not humility to keep quiet about your natural skills, it is foolishness. Get up and announce yourself and heaven will join in announcing you!  Blow your trumpets, stop being a puppet! You may only have to do what you can do once for the world to see, and forever you are known. Thereafter, people who never knew of you will seek you.

Anywhere you go, and anywhere you find yourself this week and beyond, believe that you are the light assigned to bring out hidden lights. People will try to hide your light; they will try to hide and make you subservient to them. If you truly know who you are, you will not let them accomplish their belittling purpose. Your gifts, abilities, and potential you bring to the negotiating table of life are that light. Let it shine. Sit it on the nightstand. Let it glow radiantly. Let it pierce through the darkness of today into the obscurity of tomorrow. Only you can do that for you.

The world must hear about you. You are not a secret to be kept. You are not a plague to be avoided. You are not an infection to be kept in isolation. You are a city on the hill that must be seen.  Anywhere you go, and anywhere you find yourself, believe that you are a city strategically positioned on the top of the hill that cannot be hidden. Stand tall without being arrogant. Stand shoulder-high without being haughty. Stand out without being condescending. If you do all of these, you have done it unto the One who made you in His image and after His likeness for a purpose.