My Opinion: The Power of an African Child's Mind.

I won't speak on anything I have not lived or experienced.I choose to consciously share my opinion on the power of an African child's mind and how, if not properly navigated, it can become a limitation. If appropriately navigated, there are no limits to what can be achieved.

Allow me to paint you a picture. Just like a painter, we start on a white blank canvas. My life is what you would call a movie, having experienced ups and downs like many of us while navigating life across our beautiful land and into foreign territories. I have been presented with a full view of the potential of the mind of an African child, both negative and positive.

You see, growing up as a young Black child from Africa, it is a popular belief that from a young age, our minds are shaped by the ways and beliefs of our parents and the culture. I must clearly state that this opinion needs to evolve. You see, growing up in Africa is what I choose to call growing up in a world of opinions. These opinions are what really shape the mind of an African child, and not the culture. These opinions either limit the power of the mind or influence it to reach its full potential.

As an African child, I grew up amidst many opinions that could not be disregarded. According to common belief in Africa, if you don't listen to and implement the opinions of your elders fully, without any additions or subtractions, you are either labelled the black sheep or a child with no future ahead.

You see, just having to grow up in this mental and physical environment has a great impact on the mind of an African child, this often does more harm than good because the influencing power over how the mind of an African child is shaped and cultivated in Africa, most times—not all the time— are not right. You see, our elders had to grow up in the same mental and physical environment, where opinions have shaped and influenced their minds from childhood to adulthood.

So what's the true power of an African child's mind, you may ask? Can we evolve as African-born individuals? Can we use our minds to it's full potential despite the clashing negative and positive opinions we have been culturally subjected to? How can we transform years of limiting cultural and religious opinions into pathways or roadmaps to using our minds to their full potential?

I am here to also share my opinion with you. It has to be your conscious choice; if you choose to implement and evolve. Yes, we can achieve our full potential and use the full power of our minds. Yes, we can evolve as African children and transform the negative opinions we have been subjected to into lessons and building blocks that become the pathway to using our minds at it's full potential.

There is a common saying in the African community: "You don't know what you don't know until you know." Most people call this a parable, although the meaning is as simple as can be. You see, the mind of an African child will only work with what it is given. This means that; the mind doesn't know what it does not know until it does know. If you want to transform the effects of growing up in an African community where opinions serve as cultural beliefs that shape the mind and transform these opinions—both positive and negative—into pathways for utilizing your mind to reach its full potential, all you have to do is re-educate yourself.

Many people, like myself, have felt that educating oneself is a big word and a complex field with no specific direction. In my years of evolving through life and constantly improving my mind, I've learned an important fact: educating oneself can be complex if you don't have a starting point and if you don't have direction.

You see when you walk into a library or a place full of knowledge and resources without a direction or an idea of the topic you want to educate yourself on, it is easy to become overwhelmed and misdirected. But, when we have a clear direction of the ideas and opinions—the so-called cultural beliefs that we have been groomed with—that we want to intentionally and consciously evolve, it becomes easy for us to walk into any library or knowledge-rich place and look for the right resources. We can then identify the right resources that will help us evolve without it feeling like a complex task.

You see, we need to upgrade the opinions we grew up listening to, which are most times—not always—wrong, this upgrade is only accessible when we take the extra effort to re-educate ourselves. The mind of an African child has no limits. For an African child growing up in an environment with limiting opinions shaped as beliefs and culture, it is easy to think that there is a limit on what we can achieve. I am here to tell you; that there is no limit, If you don't know what you don't know, if what you know is limiting your mind from achieving its full potential and evolving, all you have to do is identify the aspects, beliefs, and opinions contradicting and limiting your mind go out of your way, research and get your facts and opinions from different knowledgeable sources. This is the only way to compare, conclude and transform limiting opinions into pathways that will help our minds evolve and grow to achieve its full potential in any task or field we step into.

Conclusion:

Knowledge, they say, is power, the wrong knowledge is not power; it is simply another limiting opinion.

There's a saying that "nothing good in life comes easy".

My opinion is that; this will be easy, although many times the new information, and the new opinion you have researched for yourself will clash with old ones and you might feel like you're losing your way, every time you feel this way, it's an opportunity for you to remind yourself and revalidate to yourself that; "this new information, this new opinion, this new belief that you stand on as your foundation has been cultivated from extensive research done by yourself not anyone else, and you have compared different knowledgable opinions to conclude on your own opinion".

You see, every time you feel overwhelmed with fear, every time you feel uncertain about where you stand or what your foundation is, you will find strength in these affirmations. Our minds as African children have no limits. Our minds as African children will only stop thriving when we decide to stop educating ourselves and let opinions limit us.

We can't change the past, we can learn from the past; we can certainly and most definitely educate ourselves to evolve the capacity at which our minds will work in the future, thereby creating a better future for the next African generation.

Let's work.

Written by;3'Kings and 3'Crown's

God is the greatest teacher.

You are not alone!