Restpiration

Inside Adrenaline (Restpiration Answers)

Hi there. Adrenaline was published just about a week ago and we had this section called Restpiration Answers where we answered some questions from some precious individuals. However, at a glance, it is often tempting to doubt the rationale and practicality of the answers provided. So in this post, I’m just taking the time to establish the basis of the answers provided so that you can also appreciate and fully grasp them. For today’s post, we’ll consider a question from Teddy. Enjoy…

———————————————————–

Question

Hi Restpiration, I’m Teddy, a 3rd year student pursuing Economics. I should have completed University about three years ago but I continually have this feeling that I don’t belong where I am (that’s my programme). That was the same feeling I had that made me change my programme twice so that I could finally be in a place where I fit. When I changed to the programme that I’m offering now, I was more like “This must be it” but nowadays, I’m more like “Maybe not”. So what do I do… do I keep changing programmes until I find where I fit or do I just accept the fact that I may never fit into any programme and be content with where I am?

———————————————————–

Answer

Hi Teddy. Thanks for asking this question. I somehow feel that this is not just true for you but many others who are in school.
It seems to me that you’re actually on a quest, which is to find your place in life and that’s good. Again, it seems to me that you’ve chosen your profession as your main vehicle to get you to your destination. The only thing about this vehicle you’ve chosen is that it is constantly evolving and in a lot of ways unpredictable. Fortunately, who you are isn’t. You’ll always be you and never someone else. So can I ask that you, mentally, detach the feeling of “fitting in” from your programme of study. This makes the two, that is the feeling of fitting in and your programme of study very distinct components which allows the fitting in experience to become more of an internal experience not affected by external happenings. When this happens, you’ll be able to see possibilities both inside and outside the scope of your programme of study where you can fit in and be efficient. I hope this helps.

———————————————————–

Foundation

Life is so diverse and more infinite than our finite minds can ever comprehend. Thus, to really live is to be open to the million experiences life has to offer and the experience of joy and fulfillment is no exception.
We live in a culture where the youth especially are conditioned to think of life and satisfaction only in terms of their jobs and careers. Not that it is wrong but just that it’s limited and limiting in a whole lot of ways. When asked ‘what do you do?’ , our response usually is ‘Oh, I am a dentist, lawyer…’ We respond to ‘doing’ (What do you do?) with ‘being’ (Oh, I am…). When that becomes the case, we usually fail to see ourselves and our lives beyond what our jobs have to offer. We limit ourselves into feeding right from the pity palms of our professions.

So what am I implying with all this? That you abandon your job and seek other alternatives of being satisfied in life?

That’s not the case and it’s certainly not what I’m driving at. Abandoning your job to seek other alternatives to achieve what you thought your job would give you sounds pretty much like the same thing. It’s just like freeing yourself from one addiction only to look for something else to be addicted to.
The truth really is that you are satisfied with life already but the only thing is that you think you’re not (a statement I borrowed but not sure who it’s from). Satisfaction is something the Creator didn’t leave to chance, He crafted it into His Creation right from the beginning. Only our moment- to- moment thinking gets in the way. This moment- to- moment thinking ties our fulfillment and satisfaction to things like our jobs, partners, assets etc. But really those things have nothing to do with our satisfaction because even before we knew what a job was, or before we had a spark of interest for our partners, we were fulfilled.
So, in actual sense, I’m just trying to help you dissociate your sense of satisfaction from “things” and “titles”. When this happens, no matter where you end up working or who you’re with, you’ll still be satisfied because you’ve found that satisfaction in you- which is where the Creator placed it in the first place.

If this has been helpful to you, kindly share with others.

———————————————————–

Have a question?

You can send it to restpiration4all@gmail.com to receive some incredible insights.

The June edition of Adrenaline is still available for download. Use the link below to download your free copy

Download Adrenaline

Love,

Restpirant Jerome

Adrenaline June Edition

Editor’s note

When you have wings, why not soar?
When you are young, why not explore?

It’s a great time to be young and I’m not saying this because all is smooth and cozy. Obviously, it’s not. I say this because all the raging storms of youthfulness offer us a unique opportunity to grow, build character and manifest our resilience. There’s always that part of us as young people that know that there is more- more to life and more to our experiences. There’s no greater place to start your quest for more than in this insightful youth magazine. We’ve tried our best to compile articles that not only inform but transform. The articles as usual remain easy-to-follow and ultimately exciting. Hope this gets you laughing, smiling, thinking and learning.

Download Adrenaline now

Are you satisfied in life?

It’s another great day. How else to round up the week than to take stock of our lives in the area of satisfaction. That’s arguably one of our greatest quests in life – the goal of satisfaction. When Jesus fed the multitude, some of them pursued Him as far as Capernaum. Initially, they wanted to forcefully seize Him and make Him King but He escaped and secluded Himself to the hillside.
As they met Jesus in Capernaum, more than ever, they wanted to be closer to Him. However, Jesus knew that the reason they pursued Him was because He fed them with loaves till they were full. They wanted more of that (John 6: 24- 26).

Isn’t this typical of many of us today? We pursue the Lord to have our needs met and pursue Him some more to get more of our needs met. There’s nothing wrong with that because the Lord cares for us and loves to provide our needs, but there’s a more excellent way. Let’s take a cue from King Solomon who was blessed of the Lord in wisdom and wealth. Although He had all these He was still not satisfied. Similarly, the Israelites saw great and mighty wonders; they observed the pillars of fire and cloud by night and day respectively. They also witnessed the parting of the Red Sea, the raining of manna among several other wondrous deeds but they were never satisfied. They complained bitterly.

This is where we need to pause and think to ourselves, if all these great things cannot satisfy, then what truly satisfies? The prophet Isaiah in his prophecy asks the resounding question “…why spend money on what is not bread, and labour on what does not satisfy?” (Isaiah 55:2). Jesus is the Bread of Life that truly satisfies our souls. As we have intimate relationship with Him, His thoughts gladen our hearts, and His love causes us to prevail over the adversities of life. If you aren’t satisfied, come to Jesus. He is the Bread from heaven that truly satisfies.

Thoughts, habits and emotional tantrums

Asking whether you remember the saddest moment of your life may seem rhetorical or a downer or both. And how about the happiest day of your life…you remember?

If you are able to remember these two very distinct moments vividly then you’re special. You have deposited in your memory both highs and lows of your life. At this point, our concern isn’t about judging if these memories are good or bad but you still deserve some memory points for your exploits. On the other hand, if you happen to struggle with retrieving those memories or you can’t even make them out, don’t worry, you don’t really need them. You can still benefit from what I’m about sharing with you in this article.

You’ll agree with me (or maybe not) that we don’t experience only one kind of emotion in life. Even at our best attempts to cling to one kind of emotion, say calmness, there will always be times when other emotions like restlessness will try to hijack our inner experience. For the purpose of this article, you can consider emotions as anything you sense or feel. If it helps, you can even use emotions and feelings interchangeably. A lot of youth occasionally and frequently experience what they in their own words call mixed feelings. If you’re wondering whether this is good or bad, I totally understand you. We are so conditioned to see things from the tainted perspective of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and on and on, but can I ask that you let your guard down just a little bit so that the information contained in this article washes over you like a hiker basking in the coolness of the day’s breeze.

Emotions are vital components of life so much that emotionlessness, to many, almost equals lifelessness. But a deeper understanding of our emotions proves to be crucial in living a life of fulfilment and satiation. There’s no better place to start defining our emotions than our thoughts. Yes, our thoughts! I’ll define thoughts on a much larger and spiritual perspective as energies that help shape our experiences of life. This may sound esoteric but it’s really simple; beautifully simple. What this means is that our thought is our way of experiencing life. Radically speaking, none of us experiences life for what life is; we simply experience our thoughts about life. Life’s good; life’s not fair; life’s a struggle…all these comments really have nothing to do with life, they are not even close. However, they have everything to do with our thinking. But that’s what I feel… you may mutter but your feelings or emotions are primarily the manifestation of your thoughts. You get the link now? First, a thought, then an emotion which is actually a manifestation of your thoughts or to put it plainly, we feel our thoughts and our thoughts alone.

Continue reading “Thoughts, habits and emotional tantrums”

Don’t forget me😔

Mr. Simpson, a war veteran who was well into his eighties was a very delightful man to be around. To the best of our knowledge, we(the kids in the neighborhood) thought that the older one got, the less fun he became. A classic example we always cited was Mr. Johnson or as he was popularly called, Mean Joe. Not that he was outrightly a mean person, far from it. Mean Joe though advanced in years played a vital role in the leadership of our community. He counselled, planned and supervised many of the developmental projects. However, only a day or two after his seventieth birthday, he lost his darling wife and he just couldn’t get over it. He shut himself in and coiled into being a mean Joe. So yeah, we bear with him…. he wasn’t mean but he got to be mean with the demise of Mrs. Johnson.

You know who else had also lost his wife?…Mr. Simpson. Although one could literally see his eyes wet with tears sometimes, Mr. Simpson always made sure we laughed our heads off with his hilarious jokes which I still recall vividly after so many years. It was as though Old Simpson simply refused to be flattened out by the concerns of life and the uncertainties surrounding old age. If any of us grew to be that old, then we would surely like to be like Old Simpson. The greatest thing I learned from him was not just his jokes, although I’ve got an arsenal of them, it was why he did all that he did.

As we heartily laughed over one of his jokes, he whispered (it seems he didn’t want us to hear), “when you remember this joke, make sure you don’t forget the one who told it to you” and almost immediately he added, ” don’t forget me”. The rest laughed on but I couldn’t brush off what I had just heard. It was heart piercing and it opened my eyes, the eyes of my soul to behold Old Simpson in a different light. For the first time, I saw in him an adorable boy like the rest of us who didn’t want to be forgotten by his friends. He wanted to leave a legacy even if it was just a smile on the faces of his young friends.

Self yearns for nothing much
But the price tag of the beloved
To be treated with love and respect
For a prominent cottage in heart
And an abiding fortress in the mind

(An excerpt from “The Lady whom I deserve”, a poem by Restpirant Jerome)

Just like old Simpson, we almost involuntarily wish same for ourselves. There are many variants to this but beneath the surface, the underlying motivation is the same, “don’t forget me.. please”. It seems this cry within comes with being human. How you fulfill this cry, remains yours to figure out like Old Simpson did. It doesn’t take much to own a formidable fortress in the hearts and minds of others. We may not go around mouthing “don’t forget me” to friends and family but the little things done with all our heart is enough.

Who do you want to remember you? And for what?