I have often misappropriated the meaning of favor and I think my cultural setting and or environmental background influenced this. Growing up in a society where you cannot rely upon and trust systems even with timelines, you had to influence the system such that if something should take “X” number of days, you could have it earlier. This practice brings you to a point where you say you are favored when you obtain certain results given that the system is more certain to fail without some influence.
When I think of favor sometimes, what comes to mind is the idea of “double promotion” which puts differently refers to “grade skipping – advancing a child more than one grade at the end of a school year”. I had the Preschool, Primary (6 years), and Secondary school (6 years) educational system growing up. I also had a double promotion and inasmuch as that made me look good before some, and of course, made my parents proud, I am not sure I wasn’t denied certain experiences. I believe that these educational systems and stages were developed taking into consideration learning objectives per stage in relation to the age or ability of the children to comprehend and apply these objectives. What happens in some cases (emphasis on some cases) is that where children are offered double promotion, certain learning objectives are missed. No doubt they will have to learn at some point in life but my point is sometimes favor is our way of wanting to avoid certain experiences and getting quick(er) results.
We begin to think favor means no pain, not paying the price for what we desire. After all, they call us the microwave generation that desires everything at its beck and call.
In my recent experience where timelines are respected, I am beginning to see things a bit differently though. When I am provided timelines, yes sometimes I still expect results before the stipulated timeline but I also know to respect timelines. I try not to think I am not favored when I don’t get results faster than the timeline I was provided or that I expected and I try not to worry. I am consciously understanding and respecting the concept of process and time, and also seeing that favor is not magic.
PS: I remain highly favored!
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