Caution: Growth & Glass Ceiling

In life, everyone wants to grow. We all want to grow physically, numerically, financially, career wise, even in church [Methodist] Sunday School >> Guilder >> Ndodana >> Mshumayeli >> Rev.

Not matter the aspect of our lives, we all have this strong feeling of the need to grow. Imagine if you were 18 years of and you were still in Grade 1, which would suck right?? So yes, we all want to grow.

It is true that for you to grow, or should I say “change”, you have to decide and dedicate yourself to your growth. When we wanted to go to the next grade, the next one and the one after that, the formula was simple, we did our homework (practice), assignments, projects and studying for tests. Varsity was the same drill, now I have learnt that the older you grow [age] the trickier it becomes.

When you are old and done with traditional schooling, when you are working or following your dreams or passion [music, sport, etc.], the “Hunger Games” begin. There are a lot of dirty tricks to the games but the one I’ll focus on now is called a “glass ceiling”. Basically what this means is that there is this person who motivates and supports your growth, but then the same person makes sure you don’t grow.

Imagine if you were a bird in this house with a glass ceiling and roof, you looked up and saw the big blue sky, the clouds drifting to the winds and the ember sun piercing amongst them. You then decide that you will no longer sit in that house, now you will spread your wings and fly.

You pump all your energy into your wings and demand them with your heart, mind and soul to take you to the sky. Your wings take the order without any hesitation, you begin to soar towards the sky. You gain altitude, you feel your heart pumping with pride and excitement, then out of nowhere BAANG!!! You hit your head on something, you do not see anything so you fly up again, but then again BAANG!!! You fly around trying to figure out what is going on, but you still see the sky, clouds and sun, so you fly up AGAIN, but the still, BAANG!!!

This is the glass ceiling principle, anyone who has trapped a bird inside a house has seen it in action.

Now you will do this over and over again until eventually your skull cracks, you get brain damage at first, but then later your skull will pop open and your brains will be all over the floor. Then the announcement will be made “time of death 02:27”. Now you all know I do not mean that literally, my point is, you will give up. You will lose all self-esteem and label yourself a “loser”, a “failure”, “inadequate”. All those negative thoughts will flood your mind and you will decide to position your life permanently were it is, you will give up on growth, you’ll convince yourself that it is not meant for you. That is nonsense, there is this bastard who is strategically keeping you at the bottom without you noticing. Now this “bastard” is not your enemy, you know those ones and trend carefully around them. It’s the close ones, e.g. Friends and Family.

Now what you want to do is to watch the people you keep around you, as I wrote in “Friendships” you want to choose your clique. If you have a cup of coffee in your hands, it does not matter who drops the rattex in it, friend or foe, it will kill you. When you start to grow, especially if your growth is rapid, the people around you all of a sudden get scared.

Friends are afraid they might lose you, family is afraid you will start to think you are better than them and move to better neighbourhoods, your colleagues/bosses are afraid that you will get the promotion and be the director soon. Point is, everyone around you is frightened by your growth, all because you’re a being of unlimited potential, so you don’t want to flash it or talk too much about it, there is something called “jealousy”. A person can be in your corner and cheer for you but have a very strong silent prayer that is the opposite of what you see.

Here are some example:

• Cinderella’s story, all they did was hide her father’s will that leaves everything with her, then pretended to “support and feed” her.
• Your supervisor, tells you if you work hard the promotion is yours, but then turns around and paint you as this lazy worker to the directors. Only because he is intimidated by your work ethic, afraid you’ll overtake him career wise.
• I knew a guy who hid his friend’s university acceptance letter, apparently the friend was accepted at UCT and the guy had already received his rejection letter. He said he didn’t want to separate with his friend, he wanted them to attend them at the same university. He loved and enjoyed his company too much.
• I know a guy who once hid his father’s Identity document in the attempt to sabotage his sister’s university (NSFAS) application. I still haven’t asked him why he did that, what was the plan and the purpose.

In one movie I heard that “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” Loosely translated “people often mean well but do bad things”. So your friends and family don’t hate you, it’s just your growth that scared the devil out of them. So be careful of the people around you, be on the lookout for glass ceilings.

- Mzukhology