HOW YOUR SINGLE STORY CAN PROPEL YOU TO GREATNESS

While thinking of what to share with you today, I stumbled on a piece I wrote over a year ago and I felt compelled to share. This lovely piece was inspired by renowned Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, after watching her speech on 'The Dangers of Single Story'.  The speech was delivered on popular American TV talk show, 'Ted Talk'.

Unfortunately, I was unable to see the whole video but the little I caught changed my orientation and perspective about things, issues, people and life.

There are two sides to every story

 What is a Single Story?

A single story is a one-sided tale believed and passed down from folks to folks, household to household and generation to generation such that it becomes the only story that depicts that place, thing, people, situation or society.

To further explain, I'll quote Chimamanda Adichie here,

"A single story is created by showing people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become."

The single story cliché is conspicuously rampant in the Nigerian society. We are all consciously or unconsciously guilty in the question of the single story. I, for one, am culpable of this. The Nigeria society has helped paint 'Ibadan’ indigenes as a set of illiterates and uncivilized people who are incapable of differentiating the colour white from black. I, atypically held on to this, shunning other sides of the story - that is if I cared it existed -. I used to view Ibadan as a city riddled with detached and semi-detached low-cost houses with 19th-century brown roofing sheets. Not just that, I also presumed products of such society (Ibadan) to be half-baked, totally unsound, short-sighted, hare-brained and wacky set of people.

I was deluged with shame when I discovered that Ibadan has awesome landscapes and aesthetic sceneries aside the popular Cocoa House and Premier Hotel. It was also shocking to know that Ibadan has got modern shopping facilities, sky-scraping structures, National parks etc. Moreover, Ibadan indigenes are one of the funniest, friendliest, smartest, most passionate and most industrious people in Nigeria.

Recently, I have made friends with people from that southwestern part of the country and they have since helped change my cognitive belief of Ibadan people and its environs with their shrewdness, dexterity, elegance and jocose personality.

However, today's article is not based on my newly found belief but how you can tweak the single story of your life.

The Single Story and Achieving Greatness

There is more to the single story than just people and places. It cut across all spheres of life. It has to do with life issues and challenges, ideology and personal conception. There is a strong correlation between the single story, failure and success.

The single story shields and confines the mind within the scope it covers. It limits one to that very angle and perspective the story sees.

Victim(s) of a single story do not see or think outside the box. They accept whatever life cruelly place in their hands without pushing to turn around the situation. They are always restricted to a corner. They succumb to defeat especially if it's a crushing one and justify themselves with statements like, "After all, No one expected me to try this hard or achieve this much".  They wine and dine with failure. They are psychologically deluded by the single story of their life and situation. Everyone is somehow a victim of the single story.

Even Jesus Christ didn't escape it. This happened when Phillip told Nathanael that the person they have heard and read about is now amongst men. And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” “But Philip answered him saying, Come and see.” “

Apparently, descendants of Nazareth were known to be failures and non-achievers. And every child that came out from that lineage suckled, fed, clothed, and grew up with this. No one deemed it fit to rewrite the story until Jesus Christ came.

You might safely argue that Jesus Christ was an extraordinary being with supernatural powers while on earth. So who are you? A mere being? Maybe I should remind you that you are created after the likeness of the Almighty God. By this reason, there is a default power and potential installed in you. All you need is to dig deep and harness this potential. So what is your excuse?

Irrespective of the single story you currently live with, life will always provide you two choices; outshine and rewrite that story or live with it.

Great achievers are those not confined to situations around them. They live as situation-changers and solution harbingers. Impossible doesn't exist in their world. They always take obstacles and challenges by the nucha, confront it and won't rest until victory is recorded.

I don't know what single story you are currently confined to. Maybe you have been told no one has ever been successful in that line of business, or nobody in your family has achieved a significant dose of greatness. I want to tell you today, “the only person that is capable of stopping you from becoming what you want to be is you! All you need is strong will, determination, positive attitude to success and God's intervention.

If Jim Hines had subscribed to the single story that no man will ever go under 10seconds', I bet he'll never be remembered as one of the greatest sprinters of all time and he probably wouldn't have broken the 10seconds barrier. Also, Christophe Lemaitre wasn't bugged by the single story that 'only black sprinters can run under 10seconds barrier'. He broke the 10 seconds barrier at the age of 20.

Regardless of the single story you find yourself living with, always know that you can bend, twist, rewrite and republish this story. Only if you're willing to embrace your story, do the unthinkable and unfathomable with it, which is 'Achieving Greatness'. Trust in your ability to succeed at all times! 

I'll end with this thought from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,"...When we reject the single story, when we have realised that there is never a single story about any place or situation, we regain a kind of paradise and self-fulfilment."

You can watch and download the complete speech below.