The Power of Negative Thoughts

The reality of life is that everything we see when we look and hear when we listen represents just the tip of the iceberg of a bigger picture. This affects our thoughts and the way we think greatly affects our body, mind and soul. If our thoughts can affect even the microscopic texture of our tears (see photos), then imagine what that can do to our bodies as a whole, not to talk of our souls. Furthermore, our thoughts affect our beliefs about ourselves and about others. Although the science of thoughts leaves much to be unraveled, the baseline is “our thoughts greatly impact on all the components of our lives”. Positive thoughts about ourselves, about others and about our environment produce an overall positive effect on our lives, so as do negative thoughts. Negativity is self destructive, propagates exponentially faster than positivity and usually leaves irreparable physical and spiritual sores and indelible scars. Like begets like. Positive thoughts beget a positive life.

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Disproportionate Effort and Reward

During my two years of obligatory medical service  in Ndop, Cameroon,  I saw men, women and children toiling and moiling under the hot blazing sun and cold chilly nights beneath the ngoketunjia hills yielding a harvest which I may term "infra" optimal. I used to wonder and ponder if the negative effects of rice cultivation in the Ndop plain didn’t surpass the benefits (“exaggerated!”).

I saw children dying from anaemia secondary to malaria - the stagnant waters (of Bambalang) being the niche for the transmitting vector the anopheles.This gave Ndop the reputation of being one of the regions of the country with the highest prevalence of malaria!

I received teens with hernias , young ladies with backaches from recurrent muscular stress and strain while working in the rice farms.

Ironically, most of these farmers never had enough funds to pay their medical bills nor educate their children because of the inefficient methods used in rice cultivation. My impressions were much effort was put in without a commensurate output! Rice cultivation was mostly for subsistence- much man power used, much time invested, much natural resources (land etc) used for meager output! But whose fault?

Frustrations of Technology

Many great discoveries and inventions of the world were done long before the era of the smart phones and computers; when men used the abacus to count, feather quill pens to write and the ability to read was a privilege of a few. Then men had little or no knowledge about the earth which was believed to be flat and to be the center of the universe. There were no airplanes, no phones and satellites were inexistent. Yet more than 80% of today’s existing knowledge was built-up during that epoch.
Despite all the advancements in technology today, the world has been unable to trace the Malaysia MH370 plane that went missing since months. In spite of today’s acclaimed technology, the world hasn’t been able to track down a group of unscrupulous Boko Haram extremists (Nigeria) holding hundreds of girls hostage since weeks and tarnishing the reputation of one fastest growing economy of the world.

The above two scenarios are really exposing the limitations of today’s level of technology. It still beats my imagine how an object as large as Airplane MH 370 equipped with the most sophisticated chips and a crowd as huge as 300 girls cannot be traced and tracked. This is also a reminder of how vulnerable we are today! It is time to go for alternatives rather than comforting ourselves that we are surpassing the age of technology and moving into the robotic age! 

What a world of technology!
May be we should resort to African magic, the African technology…..to be continued!

Determination

In real life, there are no perfect persons, there are no perfect places and there are no perfect times. At any time at any place with any person, give in your best and make the best of what you have.Life is a dynamic process and no condition is permanent.