In my youth, I had low self-esteem to a horrendous extreme. This was picked up by the people around me, if not by myself.
When I started at college at the age of sixteen, my tutor referred me to a counsellor who tried her best to lift me out of my negative morass.
However, there was little anybody could do to help me then, because I was not yet prepared to help myself.
Whenever the counsellor suggested a solution to any problem, I would dismiss it out of hand. In truth, few were actually obstacles; mostly, they were just excuses.
Hearing my lamentations about my perceived solitary existence one day, the counsellor proposed I make use of a bicycle to carry me far and wide.
But I already had an answer to that: I was always getting punctures. Hearing me, she went as far as identifying puncture resistant tyres.
But, of course, she was just wasting her time with me, for I was not yet ready to help myself.
I preferred to wallow in self-pity, instead, for I found it easier to blame others for how I felt about life than to take myself to account. Indeed, it would take another four years for me to begin to shift my mindset.
In the end, each of us must come to terms with our own ignorance, injustice and misplaced pride, by actively striving hard to tame our inner selves. Only in this way might we begin to witness some transformation in our lives.
It is easy to blame others for the situation we find ourselves in, much harder to take ourselves to account.
In this, the road is long and unceasing. Twenty-five years on, I know I still have far to travel, but we all have to start somewhere.
Indeed, God will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.
From Quran 13:11
Last modified: 9 March 2024
