Holding a positive worldview about life is the key to successful living. I remembered as a fresh student in the university, one of our senior lecturers then, an erudite scholar and a one-time national security adviser to a former military head of state taught us a course. I could remember vividly it was a course on epistemology, and he asked us, ‘What is weltanschauung?’ Initially, the question threw us off balance as the new concept was alien to us because we were limited in scope then. We went back and did research on the meaning and concept of the word and brought back our findings to him in the next class.
Weltanschauung is composed of two German words – welt meaning ‘world’ and Aushauung meaning ‘view ‘ or ‘outlook’. It is a concept that is fundamental to German philosophy and epistemology. It is a wide world perception, the framework of ideas and beliefs, or a set of global descriptions. Through it, any individual or group, or culture watches and interprets the world and interacts with it. It is the prism through which we view the world for a unique experience and a better cognitive orientation of the world around us.
What is your Worldview about life?
Narrowing down to conquest or success in life, permit me to ask you. What is your weltanschauung? Or what is your worldview or outlook on life? What is your perception of life? What is your orientation about success? Or how do you interpret events as they unfold? One major challenge we face in life is our world outlook and our perception of challenges – the way we view challenges through the prism of life. It will either mar or make us. If our orientation about success is a negative one then every attempt we make at success will be futility. As much as possible we must change every negative world outlook and perception of adversity. Let us examine this scenario;
And they brought up an evil report of the land … saying, the land, through which we have gone to search, it is a land that eats up the inhabitants thereof, and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak which come of giants: and we were in our sights as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight, (Numbers 13:32, 33).
Maintain a Positive Worldview
In the face of challenges of adversity, you must develop a positive worldview or outlook. Developing a negative world outlook is calamitously dangerous and inimical to your conquest in adversity. All you can see is failure and impossibility. With such a negative worldview or outlook on life, it will be very difficult to succeed. They said, “In our own sight”, that is to say in their world outlook. The way they see adversity, they were not able. With this negative mindset, one becomes a victim of failure and defeat in life no matter the effort he or she puts in. A negative worldview breeds a negative mentality. In their own case, their negative worldview spiraled into the grasshopper mentality. They saw themselves as grasshopper before their opponents. In their own sight, they were like grasshoppers to the sons of Anak because they refused to awaken the giant in them. That was their orientation, their interpretation of the whole situation and it cost them their success in that particular mission. That is to say, your worldview whether positive or negative determines how you will fare in life.
A Choice Between Negative and Positive Worldview
In every adversity, just like among the twelve spies, there are two dissenting voices that speak to our hearts based on our worldview. The voice of courage on one hand, and the voice of fear on the other hand. While Joshua and Caleb were saying “We are well able”, the other ten spies were singing” We are not able”. The voice of courage says you can do it, while the voice of fear says you are not able. The voice of fear exposes our stack inadequacies in the face of adversity. It tells us how helpless and deficient we are in adversity. It is the voice of discouragement, the voice of impossibility.
But most, unfortunately, we tend to listen to the deafening voice of fear against the backdrop of the voice of courage because of the inclination of our worldview. Hence, in response to adversity, we always retort, ‘Oh am finished’, ‘am dead’,’ my whole life has come to an end’, and how did I find myself in this mess?’ ‘Or how can I come out of this trouble’. But to succeed in life we must hold a positive worldview about life. Holding a positive worldview lends credence to our pursuit of success. It is the ace we need to make our success a reality. Therefore you must change every negative outlook on life if you dream about success.