From my silence on this blog, you might think life has been really quiet for us. The opposite is actually true. It's been a busy season of life for us. Since November, I've been back and forth to the US 3 times - once to see family, another to celebrate my grandma's life, and a third for a job interview. In the midst of all that, I've been working a part-time job and trying to keep my head above water with my thesis that is due this summer. And most importantly, I've been seeking to love my wife and nearly 8-month old daughter as best as I can in the midst of it all. So, life has been a little nuts!
I don't foresee me being able to post here regularly for quiet some time still - at least not until the Fall most likely. In the meantime, I am posting quite frequently on my Tumblr account, as I find things on the web or to share thoughts that are on my mind. So, if you want to keep up with what I'm reading or thinking about, check out:
dostendorff.tumblr.com
Hope this finds you doing great! Blessings!
Monday, April 22, 2013
Friday, November 2, 2012
Friday Notes: Shaped by History
This last week, my wife and I had the opportunity to go out on a date. It was the first time since our daughter was born just over 2 months ago that we were able to get away just the two of us. Because we've been learning so much about our families and what growing up in our families brings to our marriage (see "On the Same Page? In the Same Playbook?"), our dinner conversation naturally turned to thinking more along these lines as we head back to the US to live with our families for two months. And what we came to discover fascinated us.
Schooling makes a huge difference on what kind of routine and structure our families developed. For example, my wife and all of her siblings were homeschooled. One of the great things about homeschool is the flexibility it allows for learning - field trips, different learning styles, projects, etc. According to my wife, it was a rare day when some educational outing wasn't planned as part of their education for that day. As well, they were a highly active family, so whether it was 5am swim practice or late night gymnastics practice, her mom was driving the kids everywhere. There was no bus to pick them up early or bring them home in the evenings. So the family's daily life and scheduled was shaped by these activities. Now, contrast that to my family's experience.
Me and my siblings always went to formal school. Either a bus picked us up at 7am or my parents dropped us off by 8am. We had classes that were always a specific length of time, broken up by morning recess, lunch and afternoon recess - all also at very specific times. We'd get on a bus at the end of the day and head home, leaving the school at exactly the same time and arriving home roughly around the same time, depending on traffic. When my sister's stayed for sports, the bus would bring them home just before dinnertime at 6pm. Day in, day out, our weekday's looked almost entirely the same one day to the next. Formal schooling was and is a highly time-structured life.
As we talked about this on our date, we took a step back and realized how profound a difference these upbringings have had on our lives and our families. No wonder I am used to such a real regular rhythm in my day - it's what I've known and lived for so long. And no wonder my wife's family is so much better at going with the flow of the day, because that is what life has required of them. The truth is, we are shaped by our life's experience, our history. In this case, we were shaped by the rhythm of our school experience, that which makes up 13 out of the first 18 years of our lives.
Broader Reflections
It comes as no surprise for me to say that history is profoundly significant for today. In our marriage and personal lives, different experiences have shaped my wife and our families. And the same thing is true for every person's life - whether a family member, a friend, or the focus of historical research.
I'm currently in the midst of writing up my DPhil thesis. I'm looking at the history of a specific family from Kenya. In the course of the research, it has become vividly clear how a person's family and their experiences shape who they are. For example, one member of the family left Kenya in 1927 to pursue education in the US and the UK. Over the next 33 years, he would spend over half of that time out of Kenya and away from his family. This absence from the family's shared experiences significantly impacted his experience, both what he learned and experienced while abroad, as well as what he missed while away from Kenya.
You see, it's all too easy for us to see history as simply events and the buzz of activity and loose sight of the people who are at the heart of these activities. What was their experience? Their background? It's why context is so important. Context. Context. Context. It tells us so much and is so crucial to understanding people and the communities of which they are apart.
For we are all shaped by our history. We as individuals. We as families. We as communities. We as nations. We all are shaped by our history.
Schooling makes a huge difference on what kind of routine and structure our families developed. For example, my wife and all of her siblings were homeschooled. One of the great things about homeschool is the flexibility it allows for learning - field trips, different learning styles, projects, etc. According to my wife, it was a rare day when some educational outing wasn't planned as part of their education for that day. As well, they were a highly active family, so whether it was 5am swim practice or late night gymnastics practice, her mom was driving the kids everywhere. There was no bus to pick them up early or bring them home in the evenings. So the family's daily life and scheduled was shaped by these activities. Now, contrast that to my family's experience.
Me and my siblings always went to formal school. Either a bus picked us up at 7am or my parents dropped us off by 8am. We had classes that were always a specific length of time, broken up by morning recess, lunch and afternoon recess - all also at very specific times. We'd get on a bus at the end of the day and head home, leaving the school at exactly the same time and arriving home roughly around the same time, depending on traffic. When my sister's stayed for sports, the bus would bring them home just before dinnertime at 6pm. Day in, day out, our weekday's looked almost entirely the same one day to the next. Formal schooling was and is a highly time-structured life.
As we talked about this on our date, we took a step back and realized how profound a difference these upbringings have had on our lives and our families. No wonder I am used to such a real regular rhythm in my day - it's what I've known and lived for so long. And no wonder my wife's family is so much better at going with the flow of the day, because that is what life has required of them. The truth is, we are shaped by our life's experience, our history. In this case, we were shaped by the rhythm of our school experience, that which makes up 13 out of the first 18 years of our lives.
Broader Reflections
It comes as no surprise for me to say that history is profoundly significant for today. In our marriage and personal lives, different experiences have shaped my wife and our families. And the same thing is true for every person's life - whether a family member, a friend, or the focus of historical research.
I'm currently in the midst of writing up my DPhil thesis. I'm looking at the history of a specific family from Kenya. In the course of the research, it has become vividly clear how a person's family and their experiences shape who they are. For example, one member of the family left Kenya in 1927 to pursue education in the US and the UK. Over the next 33 years, he would spend over half of that time out of Kenya and away from his family. This absence from the family's shared experiences significantly impacted his experience, both what he learned and experienced while abroad, as well as what he missed while away from Kenya.
You see, it's all too easy for us to see history as simply events and the buzz of activity and loose sight of the people who are at the heart of these activities. What was their experience? Their background? It's why context is so important. Context. Context. Context. It tells us so much and is so crucial to understanding people and the communities of which they are apart.
For we are all shaped by our history. We as individuals. We as families. We as communities. We as nations. We all are shaped by our history.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Friday Notes: On the Same Page? In the Same Playbook?
I've been reading 1 Samuel recently. Chapter 14 tells the story of Saul, the king of Israel, who's impatience got the better of him. The Philistines have set up camp to attack Israel, so Saul has gathered his army to respond to them. In one of many rash and unfortunate decisions, Saul decrees that no one in the army is allowed to eat until evening after the Philistines have been defeated. Foolish on many accounts, this decree withholds food from a tired, exhausted army. However, Saul's second-in-command, his son Jonathan, doesn't get the message. While his dad is making this decree, Jonathan has gone with his armor bearer to the Philistine camp. They're able to sneak into the camp where they kill 20 men between the two of them. The Philistine soldiers fly into a panic, unsure of what is happening. They flee the camp and the Israelite soldiers who were in hiding chase them down in battle.
Before making it back to camp, Jonathan, tired from battle and, no doubt, glad at the results, dipped his staff into a honeycomb and ate some honey on his way back to the camp. "Jonathan had not heard his father charge the people with the oath" to not eat anything until night fall (v. 27).
Well, long-story short, Saul had sworn that anyone who ate before nightfall would be killed. When he discovered Jonathan had eaten, in his rashness and pride to "save face", he actually was going to go ahead with having his own son - who had routed the enemy that day - killed. Thankfully, the soldiers protested the king's decision, saying "there shall not one hair of [Jonathan's] head fall to the ground, for he has worked with God this day" (v. 45).
Something that struck me, because of other things I've been thinking about recently, is how Saul and Jonathan weren't on the same page - in fact, you might argue they weren't even playing from the same playbook. Jonathan didn't know about Saul's rash decree, but also Jonathan was much more apt to seek the Lord's advice and guidance then was his father, whose pride often drove him to protect his own image over following the Lord.
Marriage: Merging Two Playbooks
Marriage is awesome! But marriage is also, in many ways, about getting on the same page and making sure you're in the same playbook.
Each of us grow up in families who have specific ways they do things. We grow up seeing, learning and adopting the model we see and are a part of. Think of it as our family's playbook.
For example, in my family growing up, your room could be messy, but the we had to keep the common areas clean. Another example is that when mom fixed something we didn't like (e.g. I was never crazy about seafood, but the rest of my family liked it), you needed to find something in the meal you liked. It was rare when you got your own special meal. We needed to eat what had been prepared. "Please". "Thank you". "I'm sorry". These were all a part of my family's playbook. And the list goes on. We don't buy Christmas gifts for everyone, we choose names and have a small budget for our gift (usually $30-35). Our finances were often tight as missionaries, so our family has rarely been able to do much by way of large gifts except for weddings, births, etc. My family tends to eat breakfast at 8am, eat lunch between 12-1pm, and eat dinner between 6-7pm. And we're constantly in motion - doing projects while we watch television, thinking through what we accomplished - or still need to accomplish - in a day.
In a similar way, my wife grew up learning her family's playbook. In her family, things like Sunday afternoon naps, FOB (flat on back) time on the couch reading the Sunday comics, meals together, Sunday night family time for catching up and praying together, etc. were all a part of their routine and playbook. Being involved in church, especially in children's ministry, is also a big part of her family's playbook. The Raikes family has had, continues to have, and has left an amazing legacy in so many lives through years involved in their church's children's ministry. Lauren's family eats meals when they're hungry or when they're all awake, so this often looks like 10am breakfast, 2 pm lunch and 8pm dinner - or anything in between. Lauren's family is great at relaxing with each other and enjoys sitting around playing games, reading books, watching tv.
During our pre-marital counseling, Lauren and I took a "compatibility" test and discovered we were surprisingly compatible. We've discovered that we really are and it is part of what we love and makes our relationship really easy. But, even with that, we still were coming together as two people who had learned to do life out of different playbooks.
Some of those pages, and even some of those plays, look very similar. For example, Lauren's family too picks names and has a price limit for Christmas. Her family did a little more than my family did, because they had extended family nearby - so they each get an extended family member's name to buy a gift for - and the kids all go in to buy the parents gifts. Similar, but not the same.
After 2.5 years of marriage, I'm realizing that much of what marriage entails is creating our own, new playbook as a couple. It includes plays, pages - maybe even whole sections - from each of the playbooks we grew up with. But it also involves rewriting whole pages and the messy, hard work of trying to figure out what we as a couple want to do.
Having a Baby
What's made me think about all this recently is having our daughter Aubrey just over 7 weeks ago. For most of the last two years, our married life has looked very similar to what we grew up with. There have been a few adjustments we've each made. Lauren's sweetly adjusted to the regular meal times I was used to and I've really learned to enjoy relaxing with Lauren and watching some of our favorite tv shows. Up to this point in life, the similarities in our playbooks have complimented each other well.
Having a baby is a challenge for everyone - lack of sleep, lots of new things, and figuring out what it means to care for this little new life. Becuase our married life has been so easy in so many ways, we weren't prepared for how challenging being new parents has been. We've now come to realize that we've been playing off different pages in different playbooks.
You see, in preparing for Aubrey's birth, we did a ton of research and work focused on the actual birth. Birthing classes. Talking with the doctor and meeting nurses. What do we need at the hospital and what will we need at home. All of these things occupied us for months. But what we didn't do very well was talk about what it looked like to parent Aubrey.
When Aubrey was born, we didn't have a section in the "Daniel-Lauren" playbook for how we were going to be Aubrey's parents. I think a part of us thought we'd figure some things out as we went, but a larger part just didn't realize we weren't on the same page until Aubrey was here. Because we didn't have a page in our playbook, we realized that we both defaulted back to our family's playbooks and what we had learned from them about caring for babies.
And when you're not on the same page and not even in the same playbook, it's really tough to work as a team.
I have two older sisters who have both had two boys. Both of my sisters followed similar parenting styles involving schedules for their boys, set nap times, etc. It was a common thing in my family as my sister's where raising their boys to ask, "Do you need to put them down for a nap? It's okay if you do." And so our family's playbook has been largely shaped by their parenting styles.
Lauren's family has a tremendous love and heart for kids. Lauren's parents have been teaching 5 year olds for over 25 years at their church. To say that the Raikes love kids is an understatement! And Lauren's family's playbook section on babies is different then mine. Loving on, holding, rocking, and having the baby fall asleep on you are all parts of their playbook.
Within the first week of Aubrey's life, we felt the tension of Lauren and I not being on the same page. Because we hadn't decided on our "plays" and Lauren's parents had sweetly travelled all the way to see us in Kenya, the first week of Aubrey's life was out of the Raikes playbook - because there was no page in the "Daniel-Lauren" playbook - and very different then the Ostendorff playbook. And boy did it lead to some frustrating moments.
We're now almost 2 months into this parent thing and we're now working on writing our own pages in the "Lauren-Daniel" playbook. The plays aren't going to look exactly like either of our family's plays. We probably won't raise Aubrey on a schedule in quite the same way my sister's have their kids. And our plays aren't going to look identical to the Raikes playbook.
You see, the responsibility is ours - as the parents God has given Aubrey - to write the plays and create the section of our playbook based off what we believe is best for her - how we believe God wants us to raise her. We're taking in lots of different feedback, advice and thoughts in order to shape (and reshape) those plays, but at the end of the day the responsibility lies with us. We are the ones God will one day say, "How did you do raising my child whom I gave you?". That's not a question he's going to ask our families. It's a question he will ask Lauren and I.
We've got five weeks until we head back to the US for 2 months with family. Our goal between now and then: to agree on our plays and get on the same page in the "Lauren-Daniel" playbook. That way, when we're in the midst of the "action", we're able to support one another, work with one another, love one another, and function as a team.
Like a good team, we'll know what the other would do even when they're not around. We'll be working together, in sync with one another. And, in many ways, that's one of the things every married couple has to do to make it work. To write their own team playbook.
Before making it back to camp, Jonathan, tired from battle and, no doubt, glad at the results, dipped his staff into a honeycomb and ate some honey on his way back to the camp. "Jonathan had not heard his father charge the people with the oath" to not eat anything until night fall (v. 27).
Well, long-story short, Saul had sworn that anyone who ate before nightfall would be killed. When he discovered Jonathan had eaten, in his rashness and pride to "save face", he actually was going to go ahead with having his own son - who had routed the enemy that day - killed. Thankfully, the soldiers protested the king's decision, saying "there shall not one hair of [Jonathan's] head fall to the ground, for he has worked with God this day" (v. 45).
Something that struck me, because of other things I've been thinking about recently, is how Saul and Jonathan weren't on the same page - in fact, you might argue they weren't even playing from the same playbook. Jonathan didn't know about Saul's rash decree, but also Jonathan was much more apt to seek the Lord's advice and guidance then was his father, whose pride often drove him to protect his own image over following the Lord.
Marriage: Merging Two Playbooks
Marriage is awesome! But marriage is also, in many ways, about getting on the same page and making sure you're in the same playbook.
Each of us grow up in families who have specific ways they do things. We grow up seeing, learning and adopting the model we see and are a part of. Think of it as our family's playbook.
For example, in my family growing up, your room could be messy, but the we had to keep the common areas clean. Another example is that when mom fixed something we didn't like (e.g. I was never crazy about seafood, but the rest of my family liked it), you needed to find something in the meal you liked. It was rare when you got your own special meal. We needed to eat what had been prepared. "Please". "Thank you". "I'm sorry". These were all a part of my family's playbook. And the list goes on. We don't buy Christmas gifts for everyone, we choose names and have a small budget for our gift (usually $30-35). Our finances were often tight as missionaries, so our family has rarely been able to do much by way of large gifts except for weddings, births, etc. My family tends to eat breakfast at 8am, eat lunch between 12-1pm, and eat dinner between 6-7pm. And we're constantly in motion - doing projects while we watch television, thinking through what we accomplished - or still need to accomplish - in a day.
In a similar way, my wife grew up learning her family's playbook. In her family, things like Sunday afternoon naps, FOB (flat on back) time on the couch reading the Sunday comics, meals together, Sunday night family time for catching up and praying together, etc. were all a part of their routine and playbook. Being involved in church, especially in children's ministry, is also a big part of her family's playbook. The Raikes family has had, continues to have, and has left an amazing legacy in so many lives through years involved in their church's children's ministry. Lauren's family eats meals when they're hungry or when they're all awake, so this often looks like 10am breakfast, 2 pm lunch and 8pm dinner - or anything in between. Lauren's family is great at relaxing with each other and enjoys sitting around playing games, reading books, watching tv.
During our pre-marital counseling, Lauren and I took a "compatibility" test and discovered we were surprisingly compatible. We've discovered that we really are and it is part of what we love and makes our relationship really easy. But, even with that, we still were coming together as two people who had learned to do life out of different playbooks.
Some of those pages, and even some of those plays, look very similar. For example, Lauren's family too picks names and has a price limit for Christmas. Her family did a little more than my family did, because they had extended family nearby - so they each get an extended family member's name to buy a gift for - and the kids all go in to buy the parents gifts. Similar, but not the same.
After 2.5 years of marriage, I'm realizing that much of what marriage entails is creating our own, new playbook as a couple. It includes plays, pages - maybe even whole sections - from each of the playbooks we grew up with. But it also involves rewriting whole pages and the messy, hard work of trying to figure out what we as a couple want to do.
Having a Baby
What's made me think about all this recently is having our daughter Aubrey just over 7 weeks ago. For most of the last two years, our married life has looked very similar to what we grew up with. There have been a few adjustments we've each made. Lauren's sweetly adjusted to the regular meal times I was used to and I've really learned to enjoy relaxing with Lauren and watching some of our favorite tv shows. Up to this point in life, the similarities in our playbooks have complimented each other well.
Having a baby is a challenge for everyone - lack of sleep, lots of new things, and figuring out what it means to care for this little new life. Becuase our married life has been so easy in so many ways, we weren't prepared for how challenging being new parents has been. We've now come to realize that we've been playing off different pages in different playbooks.
You see, in preparing for Aubrey's birth, we did a ton of research and work focused on the actual birth. Birthing classes. Talking with the doctor and meeting nurses. What do we need at the hospital and what will we need at home. All of these things occupied us for months. But what we didn't do very well was talk about what it looked like to parent Aubrey.
When Aubrey was born, we didn't have a section in the "Daniel-Lauren" playbook for how we were going to be Aubrey's parents. I think a part of us thought we'd figure some things out as we went, but a larger part just didn't realize we weren't on the same page until Aubrey was here. Because we didn't have a page in our playbook, we realized that we both defaulted back to our family's playbooks and what we had learned from them about caring for babies.
And when you're not on the same page and not even in the same playbook, it's really tough to work as a team.
I have two older sisters who have both had two boys. Both of my sisters followed similar parenting styles involving schedules for their boys, set nap times, etc. It was a common thing in my family as my sister's where raising their boys to ask, "Do you need to put them down for a nap? It's okay if you do." And so our family's playbook has been largely shaped by their parenting styles.
Lauren's family has a tremendous love and heart for kids. Lauren's parents have been teaching 5 year olds for over 25 years at their church. To say that the Raikes love kids is an understatement! And Lauren's family's playbook section on babies is different then mine. Loving on, holding, rocking, and having the baby fall asleep on you are all parts of their playbook.
Within the first week of Aubrey's life, we felt the tension of Lauren and I not being on the same page. Because we hadn't decided on our "plays" and Lauren's parents had sweetly travelled all the way to see us in Kenya, the first week of Aubrey's life was out of the Raikes playbook - because there was no page in the "Daniel-Lauren" playbook - and very different then the Ostendorff playbook. And boy did it lead to some frustrating moments.
We're now almost 2 months into this parent thing and we're now working on writing our own pages in the "Lauren-Daniel" playbook. The plays aren't going to look exactly like either of our family's plays. We probably won't raise Aubrey on a schedule in quite the same way my sister's have their kids. And our plays aren't going to look identical to the Raikes playbook.
You see, the responsibility is ours - as the parents God has given Aubrey - to write the plays and create the section of our playbook based off what we believe is best for her - how we believe God wants us to raise her. We're taking in lots of different feedback, advice and thoughts in order to shape (and reshape) those plays, but at the end of the day the responsibility lies with us. We are the ones God will one day say, "How did you do raising my child whom I gave you?". That's not a question he's going to ask our families. It's a question he will ask Lauren and I.
We've got five weeks until we head back to the US for 2 months with family. Our goal between now and then: to agree on our plays and get on the same page in the "Lauren-Daniel" playbook. That way, when we're in the midst of the "action", we're able to support one another, work with one another, love one another, and function as a team.
Like a good team, we'll know what the other would do even when they're not around. We'll be working together, in sync with one another. And, in many ways, that's one of the things every married couple has to do to make it work. To write their own team playbook.
Posted with BlogsySunday, August 5, 2012
Friday Notes: Choice
It's amazing how much stereotypes are entrenched in our personal thinking, in our cultures, and in our communities. In Kenya, there are definite stereotypes that people hold for the different ethnic/tribal communities. Kikuyu are often seen as the educated businessmen and women. The Massai are often portrayed as the natural military leaders. And, depending on which community you're from, another community is either seen as lazy or as unhealthily obsessed with money, work, or power. In history and academia, this is often framed in discussions of "othering" in which we paint another group as strongly different from us. Frequently this othering is used to justify our abuse or subjugation of another group. It's often how we explain the Nazi view of Jews or Rwanda's militant leaders in the early 90's describing their enemies as "cockroaches". Stereotypes are prolific in our world.
Some of the stereotypes that consistently irk me are the stereotypes placed on guys. "Oh, he's just a guy. Of course he's going to make bawdy comments about women" or "He's a guy. All guys look at pornography and think about sex." These kinds of comments have driven me crazy for years - and continue to drive me crazy!
It largely stems from the experience of my own life and how my life, as a guy, is drastically different what these stereotypes say should be true of me. On one level, I hate being described by a stereotype that's not true of me. But, on a second level, I believe that by saying all or "most" guys act like this, guys then think that part of being a "real" guy is for this to be true of them. It becomes a self-fulfilling societal "prophecy". Since I've never cracked jokes or made comments about a women's body or sexuality and because I've never looked at pornography, it follows that I must not be a "real" or "true" guy. This has then often led, in my own life, to others labeling me as gay - another label that's not true of me.
In Proverbs 4, a dad is sharing what he's learned about life with his son. The second half of the chapter deals with the father calling his son to enjoy the wife of his youth (a choice he must make) and to choose (again, a choice) to steer clear of the sexual choices that lead to death - adultery, sex outside apart from sex with your wife, etc. And what is so important about this section is that the writer's framework is one of chosen discipline. These are all choices and the father calls his son to steer clear of choosing sexuality promiscuity, adultery and the tempting woman. The young man to whom the father is writing has a choice. What we do in life cannot simply be dismissed as "I'm just a guy". The truth is we choose our actions and thoughts. So, if these stereotypes are true of us, it's because we have chosen to engage in "stereotypical" actions. The son is not given the option to excuse his actions as just what boys do. Rather, the father says, "No, you have a choice and don't let the 'typical' description of a sex-obsessed and adulterous guy be true of you."
The writer ends this chapter talking about the man who chooses the "strange" woman - the woman who is not his wife (whether in images (e.g. pornography) or in reality (e.g. an affair)) - whose infatuation with a forbidden woman and the "breast of a stranger" entraps him, entangles him, and leads to death. The chapter ends with, "He will die because there is no discipline, and be lost because of his great stupidity." (v. 23) How many men are lost in relationships in our world? How often do marriages end in divorce and life's drastically affected for the worse because men lack discipline and make stupid choices?
You see, living the life of the "typical guy" is a life of stupidity, incredibly dangerous, leading to death - whether the death of a wife's heart, physical death, the death (e.g. divorce/splitting up) of a family. The evil one seeks to destroy our lives and tempts us with things that look good, but in the end lead to death. Throughout my life, continuing to this day and as long as I'm breathing, the evil one will bring temptation my way. It's what get's him up in the "morning" - trying to convince me, and everyone, that what looks and feels good, what others say about us, don't have real, dangerous consequences. Temptation to live in either stereotype - to be the 'typical guy' or, if I choose not to be, that I must be the 'atypical guy' who's gay - is and will always be a consistent feature of our lives. It doesn't end when you get married - as this chapter shows so clearly - even though far too many think this is the case. "I just can't wait to get married, then I won't struggle with [fill in the blank]." Too many men excuse their behavior in this way and too many women naively believe that after they get married, the man they are marrying will miraculously change. But neither is true. These are but mirages and false hopes.
I, you, we "wrestle" against the temptations of this world and the wily work of the evil one who is seeking to destroy my life, your life, our lives and my marriage, your marriage, our marriages to the woman I love, you love, we love (Eph. 6:12-18). I choose to push back against the stereotypes of this world that say I and others are one thing or the other. Not all Kikuyu are hardworking and not all men are sex-obsessed. Those of who these things are true have chosen to feed their desires, have chosen to be lazy and blame others, or have decided that they are [fill in the blank] and so [fill in the blank] has to be true of them - and they live up to those low expectations.
I want to encourage you. The stereotypes that others say describe you - whether you are male, female, Kikuyu, etc. - do not have to be true of you. In fact, you have a choice. And I want to encourage you to choose discipline, choose life, choose to resist the things others say must describe you if you are [fill in the blank]. Choose the things God calls us to do, in the power of His Holy Spirit - no matter how contrary they are to what feels good, looks good, or sounds good. And we need to hold others up to a higher standard then the stereotypes our societies and world's have for them - dangerously low bars that lead to hurt and heartache. I can guarantee you, for I have seen the fruit in my own life, that choosing what is right (that which is Biblical, that which God our Creator calls us to), choosing discipline, and choosing to not let others push you into unhealthy stereotypes, but rather choosing what God calls us to (lives of discipline and making God-directed choices) brings life and life abundant.
There is always opportunity to develop discipline and change, if these have been true of you in the past. One of my best friends feasted on pornography at times in his life and it haunted his marriage, undermining his wife's confidence, her beauty, their relationship and his professions of love for her. But, he learned to discipline his mind and his life and for years now, his wife has been the sole source of his delight and thoughts. And it has made all the difference in their marriage and in his life and their lives together!
Choice. You are always making a choice. And I encourage you to choose that which leads to life, rather than choices that will lead to death. Go against what the world things you ought to look like, go against that which feels good or right in your own mind, and pursue what God has said your life should look like.
A great place to start, if you're asking, "How do I know what choices are right?", is to read Proverbs. The Creator of this world, the One who knows you inside and out and understands how this world works, has given great advice and direction through a father who followed Him thousands of years ago. And it is wisdom that is as applicable and rich today as it was then. Surprisingly little has changed in the way we as humans think, function and live. We always have been and always will be men and women who are offered choices and make our own choices - do we follow our desires, the stereotypes of this world, or do we follow God's call to discipline our minds, our bodies and our lives to enjoy the richest, the sweetest life we possibly can - the life He calls us to.
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