Personally, I believe Stereotypes don't only come from someone; sometimes we are ignorant that we carry some within ourselves. Growing up, I encountered stereotypes both within and outside the world. From time to time, I began to confront my own unconscious biases, but later experiences taught me a lot, and I understood everything.
Image by Mater Miliano from Pixabay
Experience has taught me a lot to understand individual differences and to see the good and bad in people regardless of where that comes from. I still struggle to overcome this stereotypical experience, but one thing I understand is that I try to distract my mind from thoughts or experiences that may affect my thoughts or lifestyle. Over time, I have understood that you may not control how people perceive or understand you, but you can control how you respond to situations and occurrences around you, so it does not affect you mentally.
I have seen gifted people who looked down on themselves because they were stereotyped by friends and family around them. Life itself is full of so many ups and downs, but one thing is certain, which is that you own your life and everything, thoughts or experiences around you are just fantasies that can easily be changed by you, even though they can't be undone by the world.
Basically, I have grown to understand that the way people see me or understand me doesn't matter, what matters the most is myself and my health. This is one of the reasons why I try to protect myself and everything I do every day and every time, so I don't get affected by people's negative perception of me.
Image by wendy CORNIQUET from Pixabay
I started to overcome my stereotypical experiences when I gained full confidence in myself by learning skills and connecting with Influential people. This is what life has taught me, and I won't say I have overcome all stereotypes, but I am more confident in myself, and I also believe in myself. This is like great food to my mind.
I have once been told, "you don't look like you belong here", by someone who looked less fortunate than I was, just because he was more fortunate than I was. Words can be really dangerous when we allow it to get to our head, or when I was told "All Nigerian young guy are all into yahoo fraud", and I am just a young guy trying to make a honest a living in this very tough world, so many words of stereotypes, but I understand myself and what I really wanted and the future I aimed for.
To overcome stereotypes is difficult because, as we grow, new encounters emerge daily, but we must learn to build a strong mind and understanding of our limits and capabilities and also build our confidence. There, we overcome stereotypical beliefs.
Confidence, understanding, focus and experience brought me to the limelight to overcome stereotypes and not allow it to take the best of me or affect my lifestyle. I haven't overcome them all, but I don't allow thoughts like this to shape me, and that, for me alone, is enough to keep me going.
This is my entry to Hivelearners Week 174 Episode 01, prompt.
