Personal Development for Starving Africans

There’s a common misperception that personal development is only for westerners living in the lap of First World luxury and a small handful of Middle Eastern oil tycoons and Chinese fortune cookie barons. Not true. The fact is, the fundamental tenets behind the booming personal development industry can be applied to anybody – including most primates, dogs, kangaroos, some varieties of marine life, and even starving Africans.

Indeed, if you’re a starving African, you can embark upon your journey to a more enriched, dynamic and fulfilled self by taking the first step on the road of personal growth as any other similarly motivated sentient being – by discovering your true purpose in life.

Now, if you’re like many starving Africans, you might look at your swollen belly and the emaciated faces of your children covered in flies they’re too lethargic from malnutrition to brush away and think your purpose in life is to suffer, but this is not true. Nobody was put on this Earth just to be made miserable. The obstacles in your path might be slightly greater than others, but you must understand that the power of your will does give you the potential to make your life better!

So how to discover your purpose in life? While there are many ways to do this, there is one that is so simple that even an African whose starving brain has partially metabolized itself can figure out.

Here’s what to do:

Take out a blank sheet of paper or a scrap of bark, and at the top, write or scratch, “What is my true purpose in life?”

Write an answer (any answer) that pops into your head. It doesn’t have to be a complete sentence. A short phrase is fine.

Repeat step 2 until you write the answer that makes you cry from something other than abject sorrow. This is your purpose.

Acceptance vs. Personal Growth

Once you’ve determined your true purpose in life, it’s time to go about transforming it from a mere abstract concept into reality. To achieve this, you must take charge of who you are within the context of your immediate surroundings and commit yourself, with an unshakeable sense of optimism and resolution, to the belief that you can reach your goals. It’s easy to simply accept the notion that it is your destiny to be periodically raped and tortured by small AK-47 wielding teenagers until you perish from starvation, AIDS or some other disease, but it takes true courage to take the initiative needed to enact the paradigm shifts necessary to conquer the immediate adversity you face on your way to unlocking your full potential and realizing your true purpose in life.

How to Go About Taking Your Life from a 1 to a 10

- To be continued -