CHOICES: USING THE POWER OF DELIBERATE PERCEPTION TO CREATE NEW  REALITY.

“Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth). Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.”

— Abraham H. Maslow

“To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

Based on the words of the prolific English writer, Chesterton, in this article, I want to highlight the fact that we have the power to choose the good; even in the most extreme of circumstances when everything is working against us; when it seems we have no other choice than to let the external events dictate to us what we must be at a particular moment in time.

In his poignant counsel for our progress and overall growth, he has defined — at the deepest level — the true meaning of love, forgiveness, belief and hope.

On these values; by making the right choices again and again, we will inevitably develop sublime habits that can make our lives angelic and sublime.

Now, let’s examine them in detail one after another.

 LOVING THE UNLOVABLE

“I finally understood what true love meant… love meant that you care for another person’s happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be.”— Nicholas Sparks

According to an article by Sharman Stein, a staff writer for the Chigaco Tribune, she narrated some extreme cases of love and forgiveness which resonates perfectly with my idea that no matter the circumstances we face, the ultimate reality depends less on what has happened and more on how we take it; more on what we deliberately perceive; on what we choose.

Out of those unusual stories of romance and forgiveness, I choose the narrative of Tony and Fran Toto of Allentown, Pa, which {obviously, due to its degree of oddity} was made into a movie titled, “I Love You to Death.” 

Fran Toto, the beloved wife of Tony decided one day to kill her husband; and unmistakably, she did a lot to make it happen. This may be shocking to someone who didn’t know this before, but I urge you to brace up before you read on…

Putting her decision into action, Fran Toto got someone to shoot her husband in the head; after two previous attempts to murder Tony by her failed.

With the husband life hanging in the balance due to a bullet in the head; the wife didn’t want to take any chances so she promised two other cousins some money to finish off her spouse, and they also did their job; they shot him in the heart.

When Tony didn't die from the shooting tries, his beloved wife did not relent; it was time for her to do the deed herself; so she fed him chicken soup laced with poison to attain her vicious objective. 

However, by extreme stroke of luck, the husband just couldn’t be killed; Tony somehow refused to die.

Long story short, Tony was eventually saved by the police.

Unsurprisingly, the wife was sentenced to jail; and she served 4 years in prison to pay for her crime.

According to an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, read what Tony did on her first day from prison; he took her out for pizza and he said:

"We never mention the words divorce, separation. I don't understand it, why people break up over silly things. I think people need to sit down and talk." 

Undoubtedly, Tony has that angelic level of understanding and forgiveness that Chesterton referred to as loving the unlovable; in truth, this is one of the deepest meanings of love.

And according the American psychiatrist and bestselling author of the book, “The Road Less Traveled” M. Scott Peck, true and enduring love emanates not from emotion but from choice, that is, no matter what the other person might have done; we can deliberately perceive the good; we can always choose to love. Peck said:

“Love is the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth... Love is as love does. Love is an act of will — namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.”

FORGIVING THE UNFORGIVABLE

“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.”—Marianne Williamson

This is a story of forgiveness by a woman who nearly lost everything; a traumatic experience that it is potentially devastating and life altering.

Beata Mukarubuga, nicknamed Mama Lambert, is a genocide survivor who lost five of her children, her husband, her parents and many more family members and relatives. And now she has forgiven the men who killed them all in Rwanda, 19 years ago during the Tutsi genocide. 

Indeed, she was traumatized as she recounted her experience to professor of legal philosophy Bert van Roermund about how she nearly committed suicide to relief herself of recurring pains. 

Read her words on the tormenting letter that was written to her by one of the killers:

“In 1998, one of the killers wrote a letter to me. He used to be an acquaintance of me. He wrote a letter from prison admitting that he had killed my children and others: ‘This day I killed these persons, the next one I killed these ones. The third day I killed the children of Beata.’ He enlisted all.” 

However, she was able to overcome the trauma and healed with the comfort and help of Solace Ministry; an organization that comforts widows and orphans and those who are HIV positive. A place she now volunteers to help others in need.

Though she also recounted that forgiving was initially difficult for her; and that it was a gradual process, yet she was finally able to forgive. And as you shall see by her actions, she proves to us that she did. 

To forgive, the unforgivable, this amazing woman went all the way to prison to talk to the killers about her forgiveness. She said:

“I visited him a few times in the national prison, together with others. We talked to him and to other perpetrators.”

For anyone reading this who may find going that far unimaginable, one thing should still be clear; rather than being a sign of weakness, what Beate did is a sign of inner strength and generous heart.

By visiting bloody killers in prison, more than once, to tell them she has forgiven them; she repealed evil with good. She went the extra-mile to forgive the incorrigibles. She chose to do the right thing.

Even if we cannot do exactly the same in our wildest imaginations, at least, we can derive initiative from her case to take the first step to repair any quarrel that may occur between us and our neighbours, relatives and friends — primarily for the sake of our mental health and emotional growth.

BELIEVING THE UNBELIEVABLE

“They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.”—Francis Bacon

To prove the point on believing, I will narrate to you the story of Napoleon Hill and his son. Calmly read on with delight, this incredible story of mind power which began as stated below:

Hill had a new baby boy but he was born…without ears!

However, instead of accepting and believing what he could see based on medically confirmed facts, as a healthy explorer of his own universe, Napoleon Hill deliberately perceived the land when he could physically see nothing but sea.

Hill chose to believe, when it would have been easier not to.

Let me illustrate to you interesting conversations between Hill and the boy’s doctor:

“Before you go in,” the doctor began, “I must prepare you for a shock. It’s a boy and he was born without ears, and of course he will be deaf all his life.”
“He may have been born without ears,” Napoleon Hill exclaimed, “but he will not go through life deaf!” 

Hill was definitely aware of a higher form of knowledge and power, the like of which I picked from Robert Schuller’s bestselling book, “Tough Times Never Last but Tough People Do.” My own version goes like this: to win in a life and death situation, only think life, only talk life, only believe life, keep praying life and only imagine life.

Pause for a minute and see the day and night difference between Hill and the doctor’s view. 

Obviously, the doctor had little incentive to project faith onto this worrying reality; one, because the baby was not his son; and two, maybe he had many of such negative experiences in the practice of medicine to make him bother not to. 

But Hill on the other hand, being the father of the boy, right on the spot, chose to deliberately perceive a beautiful reality out of a very negative condition with his amazing statement, “he will not go through life deaf.”

That’s a classic expression of faith-woven, deliberate self-perception. 

With that perception, he created a worthy purpose for himself and his son to do all it would take to have the child’s hearing restored; and because he was determined, it didn’t matter whether it would take ten years; twenty years; thirty years or even fifty years to realize his objective. 

Hill had developed a state of mind called faith, which as he said in his bestselling book, “Think and Grow Rich” to be the basis of all miracles and mysteries which cannot be analyzed by the rules of science; the only means of making the unbelievable become reality; the only antidote to failure.

Read on to learn how to develop this state of mind from Hill’s next statement to the doctor:

“I have discovered a powerful remedy sufficient for human needs in practically every circumstance. The first step one must take in applying this remedy is to refuse to accept as inevitable any circumstance one does not desire, and I am notifying you, here and now, that I shall never accept my son’s affliction as something which cannot be corrected.”

Hill’s authoritative pronouncement was not just an idle statement that required no effort at all. In actuality, it was an outburst of inner commitment to finding a way no matter what. 

For years, he worked at getting the result he wanted for his son, seeking all medical means available, all the while, firmly believing that the unbelievable will happen for his son, one day. And it did. 

Read below the words of another doctor after 25 years of waiting:

“Miraculous,” he exclaimed. “I have X-rayed this young man’s head from every possible angle and I see no evidence that he possesses any form of hearing equipment. Yet my tests show that he has sixty-five percent of his normal hearing capacity.”

Though, his son had been born without ears; but through the sheer power of faith, up to 65 percent of his hearing faculty was unbelievably restored. A medical condition — a permanent condition according to the doctor — was overturned simply because Hill chose to believe the unbelievable.

In other words, a miracle happened, as a result of deliberate perception of healing coupled with dedication to try everything humanly possible to realize the desired outcome. Napoleon Hill himself narrated the details of this incredible story in his book, “You Can Work Your Own Miracles.” 

Obviously, the key to ultimate realities of life for us lies not in the circumstances that confront us but in what we choose to see in them, just as Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

BEING HOPEFUL WHEN EVERYTHING SEEMS HOPELESS

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” — Helen Keller

The Winter War occurred between November, 1939 and March, 1940 when Russia invaded Finland, a story of aggression by a powerful country against a weak opponent in one of the coldest of winters on record; a four-month Soviet-Finnish war; a  gut-wrenching account  of desperate Finns facing almost insuperable odds. 

To comprehend the severity of the odds, consider these data: The Soviet’s armies were about a million and in command of more than 6,000 armored tanks; close to 4000 aircraft; and marching toward Finland ferociously with will to obliterate. 

On the other hand, with the Finns composed of only 300,000 soldiers, in control of less than 40 tanks and 114 aircraft, the odds were fearsome.

How many of them would be left standing? Or would there be any at all? These are possible questions for any concerned student of history.

If you consider this not as a tale but a real life situation and you were in Finland when this happened, you may have a faint idea of the sort of perception that could easily engulf the Finns without deliberate choice to be sturdy and hopeful against all odds; and it would be far from empowering.

Without courageous hope, this kind of artillery and man-power ratio was enough to compel a mentally weak opponent to surrender liberty — and still perished — with the reasoning that the odds were all stacked against them. 

In this surprising report of Finland fierce resistance to Soviet’s invasion, each of us can learn to see the light in the midst of stark darkness; we can learn to hold on until the day breaks; we can learn to hang in there and remain hopeful, even when everything seems hopeless to us at the moment.

The exhilarating core of the story is the resolution and resourcefulness of the Finns. For over 100 days, the ill-equipped Finnish soldiers ― in dire need of ammunition, troops and supplies ― fought the Red Army to a standstill.

Yes! You read that right; despite the odds, they fought the all-superior foe to a standstill. 

Don't you find that amazing? 

While the Helsinki lost more than 26,000 soldiers and about 40,000 casualties during the Soviet offensive, their losses pale in comparison to the Soviet’s, which had more than 126,000 fatalities and a number in excess of 264,000 casualties.

After the standstill, peace and reconciliation talks followed as two sovereign nations looking for constructive ways to end the blood sheds on both sides; and as a result, by March 15 1940, the Finns eventually agreed to make some concessions to sign The Moscow Peace Treaty.

Overall, Finland retained her national pride as a sovereign nation among all nations because her people had the courage to fight the good fight by retaining hope when the situation was utterly hopeless.

This is why Anne Frank, wrote in her dairy that:

“Where there is hope, there is life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.”

Because the Finns had hope, when they were low, they were able to overturn a terrible situation and become better by it. 

I made some effort to pore the metrics of economic performance, standard of living and quality of life in Finland today; and the reality is far from lowly, the country now has enough reasons to stand tall and celebrate. 

A once weak nation is far ahead in wellbeing and good life than many countries in the world today. Still a small country in terms of her population compared to the rest of the world but by some quality metrics, Finland is now among the top countries in the globe.

Just to name a few, these are some of the bags of honour  that should make Finland proud of her history: 

Finland is the safest country in the world according to World Economic Forum, The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2017.

Finland is the most stable country in the world, according to The Fund for Peace, Fragile States Index 2017.  

Finland has the best governance in the world, according to Legatum Institute, The Legatum Prosperity Index 2016: Finland.

Finland is the second best country in the world in a comparison of human wellbeing according to Reporters Without Borders, 2017 World Press Freedom Index: Ranking.

Finland is the second most gender equal country in the world, according to World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Index 2016.

Finland has the most human capital in the world, according to
World Economic Forum, The Human Capital Report: Human Capital Index 2016.  

Thus, they have rightly demonstrated the truth of the American religious leader, Henry Emerson Fosdick’s insight, which says:

“He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.”

Since how we perceive the world, defines us; it defines our fears and our sense of safety; it defines the limits of our expectations in life; it defines our actions—whether we will step forward for growth or draw back into temporary safety.

As the saying goes, perception is greater than reality; which explains that whatever the outside realities may be, our perception can make them far better or far worse. 

Perception can indeed create its own reality.

This little effort is meant to instruct us to see and accept new possibilities; to use the power of deliberate perception to make empowering choices, no matter the magnitude of our negative conditions.

When we understand Abraham Maslow fully, then we will make good use of our power of choice to perceive what enables us, not what hinders us; and thus, we will choose growth over fear, we will choose love over hate, we will choose faith over doubt, we will choose action over passivity, we will choose forgiveness over animosity.

With the above real life examples, it should be clear that we all have the capacity to overcome any situation, if we unleash our inner power for unlimited growth and goodness.

Ryan Holiday in his encouraging book, “The Obstacle is The Way,” sums it up perfectly with his words of empowerment that we can thrive in spite of any and everything that may hinder our paths.

Choose to fortify your perception with them habitually and become almost invincible.

He says:

“As Marcus wrote, our actions can be impeded but there can be no impeding our intentions and dispositions because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacles to our acting; and then he concluded with the powerful words destined for maxim: the impediment to action advances action; what stands in the way becomes the way.”