Article written by Florence Ozor, sister of event blogger Helen Ozor of Helen Events Blog. Read below:
Our society and social environment is rich in lessons and counsels all around, only if we probe to learn. I however, shall be drawing lessons from a rather unusual place. One may wonder what virtue there is to learn from Dame Patience Jonathan; what admirable character to emulate in her given what we know of her? Personally, I don’t endorse most of her public conduct in that exalted position, yet I see something we all must learn from her. I hold no brief for Her Excellency, I can write a long piece on the “How Not to be a First Lady”, that’s easy. Rather, I’d like to state for the record that I do strongly believe that if Destiny
exalts you to a high position it is absolutely your responsibility to do everything you can to live up to a considerable amount of expectationof that position; you owe Destiny that much.
Dame Patience is
the wife of Dr Goodluck Jonathan former President of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria. A woman from a not so privileged background, who
with a not so solid an education rose to become by far the most famous
First Lady we have ever had in our history…though for reasons not
completely charitable. Not one to miss an opportunity to speak, most of
her speech is laden of prime time comedy while the rest may be at best
shooting for some “analogue” solutions to “digital” problems. Yet she
possesses the most admirable and crudest form of confidence I have seen
in years.
‘Confidence’ by my definition, in this context is that
unflinching belief in one’s ability to succeed; not being held back by
flaws, inadequacies or past mistakes; not succumbing to failure. The
personality of Dame Patience is one that keeps going; completely
blanking out the mockery of her errors and forging ahead from one
appearance to the next. No First Lady has been mocked more than she has
in our history but she is out the next minute as though nothing ever
happened moments ago. No other First Lady has been more grammatically
challenged (most have been less vocal which may be slightly difficult to
say) yet she speaks on, completely oblivious of her ‘handicap’. Nothing
stops her from expressing her opinion, definitely not the English
language! Dame Patience is the vintage example of how to take mockery in
your stride.
The reality in our world these days is that most
lack it, particularly in girls. Many have a form of “confidence” built
on a sandy foundation which quickly gets eroded by the slightest wind of
criticism. Girls and women are particularly affected because society by
design has streamlined the conduct, behaviour and expectations of the
girl child.
As adults how many times have we stopped the pursuit
of our dreams because people talked us down or laughed at us? How many
times have self-doubt, mistakes and others’ opinions made us retreat
from life, while we mourn our ‘failure’? Daily we fail to proceed on the
journey of destiny, daily we live less than our best because we take
the perception of others about us to heart, however justified or even
unjustified. Daily we seek validation from people, we require
motivational talks and constant assurances from peers, pastors, parents
and friends. Sometimes we even lack the confidence to take genuine
compliments; we downplay it or explain them away. We second guess
ourselves so much and too often we let opportunities pass us by.
Truth
is, we get less than the battering Dame Patience gets yet we stay away,
shut down and require counselling for days, weeks and months on end to
face life again. A little ridicule of our style, posture, grammar,
diction and even the content of what we say, and we crash out of
existence not to be seen nor heard of while life moves on leaving us
behind. We afterwards mourn our dwindling confidence; wallowing in
self-pity. If most women had a good level of confidence we would have
had more women in top positions of government, business and society. We
would have had more women daily breaking the glass ceilings and setting
defined trails for others, but we allow our self-doubt to make us accept
mediocre attainments than we are truly capable of and that right there
is a tragedy of Destiny.
We fail to ask and demand for what we
think is due us, we come up with a billion excuses why we should not ask
in spite of our competence because we are unsure. By the way,
Confidence is right on the same level as Competence. Your skills are
important; very true, but think — everybody has skills. How many are
successful and outstanding? Confidence exalts your Competence. The lack
of it affects our ability to imagine and dream beautiful dreams. The
mind lacking in Confidence shuts the imagination process down by
springing up the doubts we have accepted over time. The first part of
success is imagination. Confidence translates imagination to action and
action become results. But even when we do dream, we lack the confidence
to take the plunge. Our inaction births broken dreams and broken dreams
birth depression. How then can you think it is too much to acquire
confidence?
Stop apologising for how great you are or can be.
Stop down playing you! Stop it!! It is not humility, it is timidity done
in complete ignorance of the vision of your Maker. No one feels sorry
for a high-speed sports car for going at such high speed, that’s what it
is meant for!
In the midst of our well-deserved success we keep
feeling guilty like we are fraudsters, as though someone could “find
out” that we are impostors and ridicule us. We feel undeserving. We, by
such thoughts pull the brakes on our momentum. Self-doubt is the
greatest hindrance to fulfilling worthy goals.
We generally feel
confident when we have met the pass mark, when we are “perfect”, but are
very unforgiving of ourselves when we miss the mark. Be less harsh in
the appraisal and judgement of yourself. Attaining perfection is
unrealistic and failure to achieve this results in more self-doubt,
which births a dangerous lack of confidence. Strive for excellence, this
is realistic and attainable. It’s okay to make mistakes, but get up,
correct them and move on. It is completely okay to fail. Quite frankly I
have failed too many times, yet it is not an endorsement to take
exclusive ownership of failure. People who judge you by your failures
rather than by your character have themselves established failure in
their actions. More so, who amongst us have the legitimacy to judge?
Basing actions/inactions on the illegitimate judgement of others (and
ourselves) is folly. This though, is not carte blanche to flaunt your
flaws or to not heed to edifying corrections. By all means improve on
yourself and keep improving. But first, believe the best about you.
Motivate yourself. Talk to yourself. Engaging in self pep talk is not an
hint of insanity, this I can assure you. The gospel is that confidence
can be acquired and improved on. This will be covered in my next piece.
With
the coverage of the life of Dame Patience it is obvious Nigerians can
praise and mock you with the same frequency. This trait is not exclusive
to us but to humans everywhere. This is the reason therefore why you
must consciously work and maintain a healthy dose of self-confidence.
Love her or hate her, this one true trait we should all learn from Dame
Patience — Crude Confidence. So when next you have self-doubt, or are
feeling sorry for yourself and are completely let down, remember Dame
Patience Goodluck Jonathan. Remember that your “failures” and gaffes are
yet to be used as memes, display pictures, videos, music, campaign and
dance jingles, t-shirts, as lines for opening mischievous conversations,
exclamations, etc. Remember, that your “failure” is yet to trend on
Twitter and other social media platforms. Yet to trend in the
international and local media. Yet to be the highlight of comedy shows.
Your “failures” are largely unknown and insignificant as compared. She’s
had it worse than you yet she braved it every single time.
Florence C. Ozor
@FlorenceOzor on Twitter
If you have ever sinned, then forgive – F.O