Choose faith over fear

Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo

You may not choose everything that happens to you, but you ultimately choose how you will respond and what you will do.

Whatever happens choose to stay grounded, moving and pursuing your goals. Stay grounded and make wise choices. What is going on in your head is more important than what is going on outside you.

Never let chaos confuse you because all chaos has a pattern. The power of choice, used wisely is a powerful torch that lights the way through all obstacles. You have greatness within you and possibilities beyond your wildest dreams. Just when you think that your situation is the worst, someone else is in a situation that is ten-times worse, but can afford a smile. Keep hope alive. Choose faith over fear.

Mr Viktor E. Frankl faced what seemed at the time and even now the worst in life as he waded through life in Hitler’s German concentration camps. The conditions were appalling. The abuse was unparalleled. The supplies were poor. The conditions were inhuman. Many were killed, others were wounded physically and emotionally. The conditions were dehumanising.

On arrival the inmates would be branded like animals with a number. From then on they were expected to call themselves by the number. They became nameless, but a mere statistic. In those circumstances you would think easily that the world has ended, all hope is lost. For Mr Frankl this bleak human hell was a place of great discovery and opportunity. He chronicled his journey in the world famous book: “Man’s Search for Meaning”.

Make a quality choice for your life and not knee-jerk options. Your life experience is shaped by the sum of the choices that you have made. At any point you can choose to start making different choices. You are not marooned, unless you think so.  You have more options than you can imagine.

There are possibilities beyond your wildest dreams. You can become anything you dare to become. Exercise your right to choose wisely and do not current this choice to others or to circumstances.

Choose to dare and take massive and greatness-aligned actions. Do not let situations, negative skeptics and nay-sayers choose for you. Take back your power and determine who you will be and live a life by design and not default. When you blame and complain you give up the power to choose. Do not surrender your voting rights to fear-filled fate.

Mr Frankl recorded his observations in the book: “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way.”

Everything you have can be taken away except your power to choose. You do not have to wait for everything to be taken away to exercise that power. You can express that power in your context and situation. Refuse to bow to circumstance and retire to a life of hopelessness and helplessness.

Choose greatness whatever the circumstances and you will be catapulted beyond your wildest dreams. There is no situation that lacks possibilities. There are no hopeless situations, only people who choose hopelessness and that have cast away hope. Do not let hope, vision and dreams die in your. Choose life.

It is not your circumstances that hold the key to your greatness, but you. If you choose negativity, cynicism and bitterness, do not assume everyone is sharing your sour attitude and self-pity. If you feel empty, fearful, discouraged and dejected never assume that the whole world has stopped hoping, believing, dreaming and doing exploits.

Mr Frankl underlines this view when he goes on to describe the conditions  and the reactions of the inmates at Auschwitz and other camps.

He says: “Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances decide what shall become of him — mentally and spiritually.”

Greatness starts here — when you take the decision that you will not blame anyone, but take personal responsibility for your life.

Choose to believe great things. Choose faith over fear. Faith is hope channelled into present reality. Faith sees the future and believes it as present reality regardless of how bad current reality looks. Fear, the opposite of faith, sees the present challenges as a bleak continuum and unending doom loop. Do not believe everything that fear suggests. Fear’s shadow is always long, dark and threatening death. Faith pierces the dark clouds of negativity and boldly declares that above the clouds the sun is always shining.

In whatever situation you face, both faith and fear are always present and each makes a compelling proposition to you. It is up to you to make a choice. When you choose fear, you choose to ignore the voice of hope. You throw away the possibilities of the future and embrace present reality as the dominant fact and narrative. Faith sees differently. Faith says there is an exciting future that is pregnant with possibilities. Faith fishes that hope and those possibilities and embraces them as fact. Faith sees a larger world, greater possibilities and is too exciting to let go.

You may be in the mud, but that is where vegetative growth occurs. You may be surrounded by bees, but then this is where honey gets created. You may be under pressure, but this is how diamonds came to be as they held on for millions of years under pressure. Stay with your choice of faith and keep in process.

It takes courage to choose differently from the crowd and to focus on what other people do not see. It takes courage to paint a picture that other people have decided does not exist. It takes courage to see what other people are not seeing. It takes courage to see greatness in you when others see only ordinary Joe. It takes courage to believe in possibilities beyond the current limits.

It takes courage to stand up when you are hardest hit and one of yours is blind. It takes courage to think creatively and act with resolve. It takes courage to confront your own fears and those of the people closest to you. Without courage, life is an empty meaningless cell. People with courage and conviction make things great things happen. Courage is a choice to do something regardless of the emotions of fear or self-doubt. Just do it regardless of the threats, jeers and nay-sayers.

Never laugh at a person who has chosen greatness, who sees the future, who believes the unseen and has a burning desire within. Such a person is a creator of possibilities, shaper of great realities and not mere a commentator of life. Choices, words, confidence and faith are tools of creation. To get anything you have to see it somewhere first. Faith is “first sight” for anyone who dares do anything great. If you do not see it as real in your mind, and choose that option it will never fit into your life.

Choose greatness and embrace the future and be so much in love with it that daily you wake up with a determination to see that future made real. See alternative reality to the present. Within the canvas of what is happening choose not to be a victim, but to focus on what you really want. Focus on where you are going to not just what you are going through. Choose what you want to be and see happen. Choose your thoughts and words. You have a choice to talk down or talk up. Use your options wisely. The blame option has been disabled.

There are opportunities everywhere whether you see them or you don’t. Choose to make this your default mental-setting. If you do not see opportunities that does not mean that they have disappeared. Closing your eyes does not make the world disappear. Choose to be opportunity-minded and not problem-obsessed. Choose to live a life that matters. Refuse to accept unreasonable suggestions that are suggested by fear, blindness and timidity. Do not choose excuses, choose execution. Understand that there is more power within you than in your situation.

Committed to your greatness.

Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author, and a virtual, hybrid and in-person workshop facilitator. He is a cutting-edge strategy, team-building and organisation development facilitator and consultant. His life purpose is to inspire and promote greatness. He can be reached at: [email protected] and His website is: www.miltonkamwendo.com