HIDDEN DANGERS OF FESTIVE SEASON

THE festive season is swiftly approaching with many positive and negative activities going on. Showing love is a noble thing, especially during the festive season.

The festive season is usually a good time to appreciate the people in our sphere of existence. May the spirit of pure love and appreciation be manifested through all of us during this season.

Appreciating and valuing others always nurtures a healthy, enjoyable and productive environment. We must appreciate each other in ways that impact positively on individuals, families, businesses and our workplaces. Make a conscious decision this festive season to appreciate the people around you. Appreciation may inspire someone to finish this year strong, and positively begin the new year. A good or right gift to an individual or a family could send a powerful message of thanks, appreciation and encouragement.

We are living in times where most of us are so self-centred, proud and selfish to the point of failing to appreciate our parents, brothers, sisters, friends, colleagues, bosses or subordinates. A nation that loves and appreciates each other is an inspired and strong nation. On another note, today I want to discuss the dangers of the festive season, because if we are not careful, we may easily get off course and experience destruction.

Usually festive seasons are full of spiritual, emotional, relational, sexual, moral and even professional landmines. A landmine is a small piece of metal placed in the field to incapacitate enemy troops. Though a landmine is small, it is very destructive when detonated. Any slightest pressure can detonate it. The explosion that follows a detonated spiritual, emotional, financial or moral landmine may have an adverse effect on our relationships, families, finances, careers and also has the potential of altering our future prospects.

During this season, we must be wise enough to avoid landmines set along paths out there in places we enjoy walking and in hidden locations we seldom frequent, but find ourselves there due to pressures of the festive season. Let’s first of all look at the landmine of loneliness. Charles Durhan says; “Loneliness is a state of mind, a feeling deep in the pit of your stomach. It may be mildly irritating or totally incapacitating.” Loneliness can be so overwhelming, consuming and devastating. Loneliness makes you think you lack meaningful contact with others and produces feelings of inner emptiness and a strong desire to be needed by someone.

At this point that’s when we begin to get involved with the wrong people who will begin to introduce us to wrong behaviours and substance abuse.
We must be wise and not allow the pressure created by loneliness to cause us to step on landmines of HIV, unwanted pregnancies, date rape, substance abuse etc. The other landmine we must be aware of is that of social and peer pressure. We sometimes get involved in inappropriate, immoral and even illegal behaviour because of social and peer pressure.

We then give excuses like ‘everyone is doing it’. Just because many are doing it, does not necessarily make it good for you. During this festive season, we must refuse to allow peer pressure to make us do things that are contrary to our standards and principles. I realise any deviation from what is considered ‘normal’ or popular things to do may result in us being rejected. We must learn to contend with peer pressure.

You could go to a party sober and collected, and come back hooked on some substance that may waste the next 10 years of your life and jeopardise your future. When we succumb to peer or social pressure, we may become mentally distorted, confused and alienated by the illusive promise of conformity. Social and peer pressure promise acceptance and approval, but in reality, deliver emptiness, hurt and pain. Another landmine that we need to be careful of during this festive season is that of compromise.

We must always perceive as deadly and dangerous anything that pushes us to abandon what we know to be right. When we fail to resist thoughts of compromise, we open ourselves to actions that may affect the success of our future. Just a few minutes of compromise has the potential of circumventing the rest of our future.

Sometimes we think that a single act or choice won’t matter, yet it does. Compromise is a very devastating landmine because it is subtle in nature. Sometimes we compromise in order to be accepted by others or to be part of a certain group. We should never compromise the standards of truth just to feel part of a particular group or because of the need to be accepted by everyone.

When we compromise truth and our basic convictions, our thought patterns actually become distorted and corrupted. Compromise usually changes the way we view issues of life, and then the truth or what is right becomes irrelevant to us. We must allow the grace of God to empower us to avoid deadly landmines and traps this festive season.

    

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