What usually comes to mind when you hear the word “enemy”? Does it make you look for your sword and armour to prepare for a fight? Does it open the hormone gate for adrenaline in the body which makes the heart beat faster and prepares you to react to danger? Does it make you involuntarily wear a frowning face? Or does it make you watch out for an animated object?

According to the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, third edition, a person/ entity who hates or opposes another person/ entity and tries to harm them or stop them from doing something is an enemy. In other words, an entity, object, situation, substance… that impedes our motives, purpose, goals, living, success qualifies to be our enemy.

Just as there exist two sides to a coin, an enemy isn’t different. There are pros and cons to having an enemy – yes Pros just as there exist cons. But that is not to mean we should make for ourselves enemies. No, if one puts in deliberate efforts to make enemies, it would rather be productive spending that time in making new friends hence, we are to try as much as possible to make for ourselves no enemy although enemies will make us.

Satan or the devil would be livid by now for being credited for most misfortunes even though sometimes our own negligence is palpable. In some cases, when we hear the word enemy, it is Satan, in other words, the devil that comes to mind.

Sometimes we focus so much on him that we unknowingly become our own enemy while Satan feels leery about us (that is to mean, we have over attributed all misfortunes to him). For the purpose of this article, we will focus on some of the inanimate enemies we ignore although they tend to resist or impede us from attaining our goals, vision, and aspirations;

Ourselves/ You/I:

Someone would ask, how am I, my own enemy? Yes. This isn’t an oxymoron. Sometimes, we are our own enemy. There are many individuals who are never willing to make those sacrifices that have the potential of opening the doors to their desired successes yet, they are quick in blaming their failures on others. For instance, someone who doesn’t work yet prays to become rich. Or a student who makes no effort to study a subject yet wants to score a good grade. That only happens in fairy tales or fantasies.

As humans, we have been given the power of choice. Once to every man a nation, comes the moment to decide. For the good and evil side, we have the power of where to side. It is believed that in life, we are responsible for 90% of what happens to us. In other words, we are the creators of 90% of our lives. If what you create is good, enjoy it. On the contrary, if it is bad, learn your lessons and never repeat them. The remaining 10% are what we have no dominion over. For instance, the death of a loved one, natural disaster etc. For this, we need not complain. A positive mind, courage, strength and mental toughness are what we need to manage the 10%. In short, we have the power and choice of being our own enemy or ally in building or destroying what we yearn to be. The change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. – Barack Obama

Low self-esteem

Have you ever met someone who is gifted with something so unique that a lot of people admire and wish they had, yet when you tell that fellow about that which you admire, he/she thinks you are flattering or making fun of him/her?

Sometimes, low self –esteem blinds us to the extent that we hardly find one thing about ourselves to be proud of. It makes one feel so inferior such it denies us an opportunity of appreciating or saying smugly our strengths. Low self-esteem is also known as Inferiority Complex (I. C.). I.C. is not just an enemy that pulls one from achieving our utmost potentials but also traumatizes the individual leaving them feeling less needed and less important.

Jimmy is one pretty girl in my neighbourhood. Yet as many times as I acknowledge how pretty she is, she seldom believes me and takes that as a deliberate fun made to mock her. In fact, she gets offended whenever others even do the same.

This affects her that she hardly wants to make contributions even in the midst of her colleagues although she makes smart submissions. She thinks her contributions would not be relevant although that could not be true. I.C. also affects our confidence level and is one of the enemies in our lives that is far too shambolic to be able to put us on the path of success.

Fear

Another serious enemy that kills dreams than we know and has contributed to the pulverization of many dreams, ideas, initiatives, and so on is fear. Fear holds more people back than we will ever know. The fear of failure held humanity back and made us accept that it was absolutely impossible for a mile to be run in four-minute until Roger Banister kicked that fear out of the way.

Fear of Success: Some people are also scared of success. They fear that when they succeed they may not be able to maintain the standard or be in the spotlight. For one to succeed, the fear of success or failure must be kicked out of the path.

Broken Relationship

The fact that a relationship failed although one never dreamt it would ever get sublimed into the abstract arms of memories doesn’t mean all other subsequent memories will turn the same. For instance, the beautiful relationship nurtured by Kwame and Esi couldn’t see daylight because Esi walked away from the relationship leaving footprints painted with betrayal through Kwame didn’t offend her. For this reason, Kwame has involuntarily associated relationships to ‘heartbreak’ due to the psychology of classical conditioning. He could get it twisted responding to relationships in that angle. There are as many good people as bad people. You never know, the next try maybe that which you have been yearning for. We should also give way for second chances in life with caution. Sometimes, this form of the enemy (broken relationships) can prevent us from trying new things and getting them right. It is an enemy that if not dealt with could deny us from attaining our desired relationship goals.

Poverty

This is an enemy that does not just pull us back from attaining our goals; it can lavish on us unexpected embarrassment. Ideally, any individual that finally makes it out of the callous arms of poverty would snarl at it if not crunch it. If you’ve ever seen poverty display against someone before the spotlight, you wouldn’t even want to host it for a moment no matter how generous you are. No wonder the United Nations has it among the challenges which need to be reduced if not eliminated entirely. Many helpless people die daily because they are unable to pay money for surgical operations or medications due to poverty. Others also sell their values, pride and dignity, when attacked by the enemy poverty, in exchange for temporary relief. Poverty is one of the enemies that have the potential of distorting one’s conscience hence, in the struggle to escape poverty, others become violent to the extent that they can even kill others just to escape poverty’s wicked hands. To fight this enemy, one needs, favour, grace, hard work, endurance, determination, commitment among others to become victorious.

Ignorance

Scripture says “for lack of knowledge, my people perish”. Information is really key in this modern time and age, therefore anyone who wants to be ahead must be ready to acquire and utilize information. One of the ways of acquiring information is via reading and observation. “Readers,” some say “are leaders”.

Sometimes we have the power of solving some of our problems but due to the lack of information, we suffer while waiting for a helper who may never come. Just as a producer attaches a manual to products to guide buyers on how to use and maintain the product, so is the bible a manual to God’s product; mankind.

Hence if is ignorant of the word of God, he/she is positioning him/herself at risk of suffering the cruelties of this world.

In conclusion, there are other enemies too that we hardly acknowledge as such yet, they impede our race to reaching our goals – the sad thing is we associate the consequence of our negligence with the devil/Satan or a neighbour we have in mind. But the above-mentioned enemies are real and if not dealt with properly, could hold us back from reaching our purpose in life. Always remember that we are sometimes our biggest enemy.