On moving up or being stuck.

How do Ivoirians know they’re "poor?" It’s the same question of Adam and Eve – how did they know they were naked? It was suddenly revealed to them from an external source. We can’t wish for what we can’t have if we don’t know it’s there. People here talk a lot about how they are a poor country. How they’re “en retard” (behind). They are frustrated with the state of their country. But the United States was in this same place back 100, 150 years. People were hitching up wagons to – about 2000 miles (3200 kilometers) to what was then “the Oregon country.” It wasn’t because something was wrong with us, it wasn’t because we messed up – it’s just where our own development was at the time. We haven’t landed on Mars yet, simply because we just haven’t gotten there.

Doesn’t it happen, on an individual level, that we beat ourselves up for seeing something in someone else that we don’t possess? I’m not talking about material things; I’m talking on more of a “personhood” level. We ask ourselves: “Why am I a such a disorganized mess?” (insert thought of someone who’s organized here), “Why do I babble on like an inarticulate fool while so-and-so speaks so well?” or “Why am I not as effective at work as my colleague down the hall?“ We compare. And comparing is so dangerous. Because instead of being supportive and encouraging and loving to ourselves, so that we can achieve the next step in becoming more organized, a better speaker, or more effective at work, we put ourselves down. We beat ourselves up. We blame ourselves for not being “enough” and then we begin to think we’re shit. Something is wrong with us. Then, the destructive behavior starts. Why do addictions persist? Because people are so busy menacing themselves with how horrible they are and how they deserve nothing that they don’t love themselves enough to make the changes they want to see in their lives.

This is at least in part what I see here. Ivoirians seem to think negatively of themselves – They’re not the United States. They are less. And that’s just not fair. Just now, in the midst of writing this, I was chatting with a colleague who works at the local Ministry of Education, and he said, “But you’re more honest than us.” You, the Americans. Us, the Ivoirians. "Hell no!" I told him. "People are people, and there's plenty of dishonest people in the States." I think to myself, with a negative self-perception like that, how is this place ever going to have the spirit to make the changes they want to make?

Because of the American personality -we want more and bigger and the next best thing- there was a lot of natural motivation for invention. So the US produced electricity, human flight, the telephone, washing machines. And the list goes on. But because Americans produced this stuff, which is useful to the world-over, does that mean Ivoirians are crap? This moves on to a whole other question – are we valuable because of who we are, innately, as human beings, just for being living and breathing spirits? Or do we base our value on what we produce, what we do? Am I more valuable or better than someone because I was a pretty damn good field hockey player when I was 13 or because I entered college with a semester’s worth of college credit from college courses I took while in high school? Are you annoyed at me because I said that, asking what’s with the unnecessary bragging, the “personal plug?” Because if I read that, I would be. And that’s my point. That stuff, it means nothing. It’s stuff I did, but it’s not who I am. It’s not who my spirit is. And I’d like to see Ivoirians –and the rest of us- to give ourselves a little more compassion, a little more nurturing. We are able to achieve what we want through nurturing and pushing ourselves, not through thinking badly of ourselves. That only keeps us stuck where we are. Côte d’Ivoire, appreciate who you are, give yourself a little encouragement, and you can move.