If the Spider Becomes Homeless, Nature is Violated

By J Y Opoku

"In 'If the Spider Becomes Homeless, Nature is Violated,' discover the profound analogy between the spider's resourcefulness in building its dwelling and our potential to leverage innate resources for personal growth. This book explores the correlation between nature's provisions and our ability to harness them for success. With a focus on the mind as an invaluable resource, it navigates the intricacies of personal development, offering insights on nurturing this asset to confront life's challenges. By embracing these principles, success becomes not just possible but inevitable."

• Language: English
• Publisher: J Y Opoku
• Release date: Jan 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9781805173311

J Y Opoku

Joseph Opoku is an engineer by profession with over 18 years industry experience in the telecommunications industry. Throughout his engineering practice in the corporate world, he has encountered diversities of personalities and character traits that has shaped his thinking and belief systems when it comes to personal vision, leadership, effective practices that produce results for individuals who want to leave extra ordinary lives. Joseph Opoku holds two Master's degrees from Westminster University and University of Hertfordshire, UK in ICT and International Business respectively. He is a co-founder of life design, a human capital development consortium and also runs Thinkfluence.

Book preview

The change of my life - Personal Reflection

change

Writing this book is classical example of how my life has gone through several twists and turns and I would like to begin this book with a personal reflection of my life’s journey. Change as they say is the only constant in life and one’s response to change will play a key role in their results ultimately. There are several milestones worth highlighting but for the sake of achieving conciseness and not boring you too much, I intend to limit myself to the ones I deem critical and appropriate for the overall sanity of this book. I will therefore begin with the dilema which most people face in life when they get to a crossroad. At this point, the power of choice ceases to be a natural phenomenon because of the weight of implications hanging in the balances.

Coming to a crossroad

crossroad

So the first sign or indicator that shows that there is a need for a change is when one comes to a crossroad and I came to a crossroad in my life where there were several choices and options. I had internal inconsistencies. I had a lot of ideas and didn't know which one to pursue.

When you get here you are in a position to either give up because you become overwhelmed or engage on a solution hunt. Anybody in that position as of now, I believe you have the choice and hopefully my reflection will be useful to you. It's not bad to come to a crossroad, rather what do you do when you are at a crossroad is what matters. In my case, when I came to the crossroad in that state of uncertainty, not knowing what the future holds, I decided to settle down take a moment and reflect on what has happened and the choices I had made in the past that led to my present position. I wasn't hard on myself and I don't believe that being hard on yourself will actually solve anything. Rather, be truthful to yourself that you made or did not make certain decisions in the past and those decisions didn't turn out the way you expected. There is therefore the need to hit the refresh button. This is the first stage and the first indicator when you come to a crossroad. You reset the coordinates or reroute for a want of a better phrase. This is exactly what I did.

Acknowledging my state of helplessness

helplessness

After coming to the crossroad, I then acknowledged that I was in a state of helplessness. Many people deny this stage. They live in self-denial and they are quick to point accusing fingers at others as to why they ended up that way. I'm not suggesting that life will treat you the way you want and expect and by extending  I'm also saying that you could trace the cause of most of happenings In your life to people but the ultimate responsibility is YOURSELF. If you can see yourself as the primary responsible person of your life and acknowledge when you are in a state of helplessness, then you stand a better chance of coming up with solutions or other choices that could alter your present circumstances.

You can play the blame game but unfortunately, that will not change your circumstances. So it's more of a change of state of mind and focus.I am in a state of helplessness, I acknowledge the state and that is a first step. What do I do next? Your ability to realize your helplessness will now give you the opportunity to look for options or solutions to address that state of helplessness. Don't be shy when you're helpless. Don't feel discouraged when you're helpless. At certain stages of life, you'd be helpless and truly, you don't have all the answers so you are bound to be helpless at a point.

Willing to trade my vulnerabilities

Acknowledging my state of helplessness now led me to a point where I had to, in a way, trade my vulnerabilities and ask for help. One way of generating internal power and energy is your willingness to trade your vulnerabilities. Many people walk in life holding on to the vulnerabilities because they're hiding it from other people. They don't want people to know they're vulnerable. It's a choice that I don't believe would stand a chance of generating inner power, inner tenacity. And I'm also not advocating that you go about exposing yourself to every Tom Dick and Harry that you come across. No, I'm saying that there are people or networks in life where you can confidently reveal your vulnerabilities and trade them off.

This is one of the things I did when I acknowledged that I was in a state of helplessness. I began asking and looking for help. And I was prepared to appear vulnerable to the world. That was one key that helped in turning my situation around. I wasn't ashamed to appear vulnerable. Are you willing to trade your vulnerabilities, are you willing to open up the wounds so that the wounds can be treated? I don't know if it is a psychologist you have to see, I don't know where you would have to go for help but whatever the situation is, you need to find help and your willingness to take that step will go a long way in you overturning the situation. These vulnerabilities can be exchanged for inner strength, because you would need this strength to prosecute life to the fullest.

Finding the courage to chart a new path

new path

The next step for me to complete the cycle was finding courage to chart a new course. Most at times, we become stuck with our past and with the things that we were supposed to do and didn't do, and couldn't do. We then forget to live in the present and take actions that will alter the future. Courage is mostly required on embark on this journey.

Courage is the ability to recognize your current situation and the willingness to do something about it. You would have to be in a position to take these decisions in life and that is what I am calling courage to chart a new course. Do you need to walk away from a very bitter relationship? Do you need to walk away from a very bitter past or do you need to let go of certain things that you are involved in? Do you need to separate yourself from something external in order to reset your inner members to fall in alignment. If you are able to take away the distractions and take away the weight that is preventing you from advancing and starting life afresh, then progress is just a matter of time. That is what I did which I believe accounted for a new direction and a new passion that I found in changing the course of my life.

In conclusion, change is the only constant in life as they say. We go through changes on a daily basis, our cells regenerate several iterations and millions of times on a daily basis. So there's no point holding on to something in life that is not working. This reflection is supposed to bring our consciousness to the fact that change is part of life. And we shouldn't be afraid to change. We shouldn't be afraid to press the reset button. We shouldn't be too proud or too arrogant, not to recognize our frailties and the mistakes that we made in the past.I'm hitting the refresh button. And I am starting again. This is courage. And this is somebody with the intention of causing a real change in their lives.

What is personality development about?

The concept of personality development dates back several years and continues to take focal place in the lives of people who are seeking to improve upon themselves. In as much as there are several attempts to theorize and provide frameworks that should be consulted for answers about personality development, unfortunately very little impact is observed. This book seeks to provide clarity and tools that are customizable when it comes to personality development. I do not claim expert knowledge in this field but I am confident of how I used these tools to advance my own course and change the status quo in my life and circumstances.

Personality development theories

According to an American psychologist Erickson, human personality development involves the mind, the body and how individual within a society coordinate. Erickson believes this is a lifelong journey undertaken by all. Some other research attributes personality development to pre-adapted emotions that humans are born with. It is believed that due to the wide variety of circumstances influencing these emotions, people turn out in their later life with certain personality traits. These traits are born out of repeated experiences and cognitive patterns relative to each individual's circumstances.

One can understand the justification of these theories, usually through some analyzed data but the challenge with such data is how big the sample size was and to what extent the researcher's personality in itself influences the outcomes. It is in this light that such research could be considered merely a guide and not the absolute truth. By this, it is recommended that one examines their own circumstances and prescribe the appropriate remedies if and only if they understand themselves. This book introduces a guide in this regard.

Guide 1 - Self discovery

Self discovery

It is quite interesting that oftentimes people are caught in the urgency of finding out remedies when the real problem has not been identified. It is just like focusing on the symptoms rather than the causative agents. If you are a fun of movies and precisely extraterrestrial genres, you will appreciate the fact that aliens who arrive on a planet do so while taking their power from a central source. In order to defeat the entire specie, chances are that your efforts will be targeted at their source loosely referred to as