The Price of The Prize
Growing up, I never really stuck with many values. I was of the mindset that the few values I had accumulated were enough and there wasn't anything more to learn. A very naive line of thoughts.
More often than not, the values I felt that I was okay with were always challenged and more often than not, I always failed to uphold these values. These soon led me to the conclusion that making or creating values was one thing and upholding, defending and standing by these values was another thing.
One value that I constantly kept dwindling at was my confidence. In my head and in the comfort of my room of course :) I was very confident but when opportunities came for me to showcase this confidence, I found myself withdrawing into my shell like a snail. One funny fact was that, after these opportunities had passed, I would have subtle conversations with myself and these conversations always centred around how well I would have performed if I took up the opportunity to show how confident I was. As one would expect, these conversations always ended with disappointments as the opportunities were already far gone. In all these, I tried to know where to draw the line as overconfidence is one bad trait.
Image is mine
One beautiful evening when the sun painted the skies with golden hues, we had a Bible studies class. I went to a very religious highschool and we were always bombarded with so many christian activities. If I was given the opportunity, I wouldn't attend these classes as I am not a Christian but rules were rules.
The teacher who took us on this class was a somewhat biassed man. He believed that it was only his church that was the true church and that other christian churches were fake. This always caused controversies as the other christian students who weren't members of his church took offence. I never really had a say as the topic didn't bother me and this man knew it.
On this particular day, he came to castigate my beliefs and only mine. In the past, he had tried this and as usual, I succumbed due to my inability to defend myself, or so I thought. But in this day, I stood up to him. He kept going on and on about how people from other religions are unbelievers and how all of them had a special spot in hades. I was very calm about this till he threw a question to the class.
"Is there anyone here who isn't a Christian?". Every single person there knew the answer to that question, including this man but he still asked to taste my confidence.
I slowly lifted my hands to show my assertion. He ordered me to stand to my feet, then he started giving the "general views" he had about my religion; which were 95% false.
With my head held high, I told him that he was extremely wrong. I went ahead and told him the truth about my beliefs. With this, I expected him to possibly give me an intensive punishment for 'correcting' him in front of the whole class but on the contrary, we got into a healthy verbal exchange which left him a bit frustrated and left me feeling very fulfilled. At this point, I felt my confidence level had climaxed.
After the class, the man beckoned on me and asked me to further explain certain details for him, which I did glady. That was the last time this man took us in a Bible class because teachers were always shuffled, but after that day, things changed. He began to see me in a different light and sometimes he gave me preferential treatments. Eventually, we became very good friends.
One thing I took out from my experience was the fact that my level of confidence actually gave people a mind reset. If I had avoided verbal confrontations like I always did, I probably wouldn't have attained such a level of confidence. A level of confidence that I still uphold till this day, irrespective of the topic being discussed or the people involved.
I had to pay the price to uphold my value. Like my mom would always say; "Price is what you pay, value is what you uphold" , or in my case, value is what you attain.
This is my response to the second question of the #kiss blog ideas. It's not too late to share your views on the topic.
With love, wongi ✨
I don't see anything in the link you provided to indicate that your post is in response to a contest.
Please remove the #contests tag and refrain from using it wantonly except in appropriate circumstances. Otherwise please provide a cogent explanation for your stand.
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😍😍🤟thats good
Thank you
I try as much as I can to stay out of religious discussions, especially when I know there are people who have opposing believes to mine in a setting because like it or not, everyone is entitled to their beliefs and no one knows with 100% certainty which religion out of the 100s is the right one.
But like you, I speak up when people try to impose their beliefs on me.
I attended an Islamic Senior High School(contrary to yours) but there were christians there with us. What I love about my school is that Christians were not forced to pray with us. We didn’t even have a mandatory islamic courses for the entire student body because the administration understood that the school was not a muslim-only school. The only thing that suggested we were an islamic school was the dressing code. The ladies wore very long skirts, stretching as long as below their knees and wore veils too. Aside this though, everyone was at free will to practice their believes.
This was an interesting read. Glad to see that you stuck to your believes. My values got tested recently and I folded due to a lack of better judgement. I was surprised because I thought I was this foresighted person with concrete values and belief system.
Your school authorities were very learned people to follow that line of judgement. Learning in a school environment like that would be very healthy.
This is one thing with values; they would always be tested. You're lack of better judgement may have led you to fold this time but I believe that another opportunity would showcase itself. Maybe then, you'd get better insight to make great judgement.
Thank you for coming around ✨
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I have known a church here in my place that is claiming the same thing as that teacher; standing firm on their beliefs that they are the only true church. Yeah, it's hard to deal with people like this since their minds were already fixed on the beliefs. If you argue with them, then you'll have more chances of getting accused of bullying. Haha!
In terms of religion, I can say I'm a Christian but I couldn't claim that I fully embrace catholicism. There are beliefs and traditions of them that I don't agree with. So everytime that someone will confront me why I don't believe in such and why I'm not believing in such, I'll tell them the reasons and emphasize it to their faces that I will not care if they ever disagree. So far, no one have argue with me. The ending was often to respect whatever beliefs we believe and pray for each other.
I can relate to you actually. I've always been like that, just being silent and going with flow. But there were really times that people will abuse your peace and they'll test your standpoint.
I'm of the view that there is only so much a person can take. Abusing a person's peace over and over again isn't a wise thing to do. Sometimes, these tests posed by other people are ways to help us grow and stand firm in general.
Thank you so much for stopping by ✨
See the way you smartly humbled him😄.
One particular thing I don't like doing is arguing about religion. When you're on your sermon, I better keep mute and be nodding my head because if I eventually start, I'll pour out everything I've been nurturing inside and it'll eventually turn out like that case of yours
I usually used to follow your method until the man purposely called me out; a chance to showcase confidence😃
Thank you for coming around.✨
I have felt that same feeling many times my dear Wongi. That of not having the confidence to make known what I believe and what I think. Then there are the thoughts left swirling around in my head of, "I would have done it this way, I would have responded in such a way." So I hear you.
I think you've given a good example of what it's like to stand up for what you really believe in 💟
That is absoluetely right. Im glad i was able to stand up for what i believe in.
Thank you for visiting✨
Having belief in ourselves and knowing our self-worth helps us to stick to our values despite whatever opposition of views and beliefs that we face.
It's great that things turned out favourable for you, and a great eye-opener for your teacher.
Thanks for your #KISS
I enjoyed it 😉
lips sealed
In the end, I'm glad things turned out great but if they didn't, I guess I would have been given yet another opportunity to demonstrate confidence.
It's always a pleasure ✨
The audacity to call other churches fake and assume that his church is the only true church makes one question the teachings he has been consuming.🤔
That was a great use of your confidence✨. I respect him, though, for being open-minded enough to learn more from you! I wonder if he started questioning his own values and beliefs. 🤔👀
In opposition to what we all assumed, he was actually a very open minded man.
I don't know about this but even if he did, he wouldn't let us know😅. He was actually the school's chaplain so literally everyone looked up to him.
Yeah, with such a position, he'll just keep it to himself 😀.
My aim wasn't to convince him tho, it was just to correct his views and I guess that played out well😅
Thank you so much for coming around❣️