I have always maintained that we live in a "fast n furious" generation where patience is becoming less and less of a virtue. Today you see a 20-year-old guy who thinks not having a Rolls Royce at that age is a failure.  Young adults now long for quick fixes to bypass what they see as challenges. They are willing to fight tooth and nail to get money, cars, fame, etc. Just yesterday, we were greeted by the news of a 21-year-old 300 level UNILAG student who killed a CEO just because of what? Over money? A yearning to belong? She even went ahead after killing him to withdraw cash using the victim's ATM card.  For goodness sake, what does a 21-year-old lady want with a sugar daddy? Who was she trying to impress? Was she in competition with anybody? More so that she has been abusing drugs at this tender age. A beautiful lady as such. One of the virtues God has blessed me with is contentment. Bible says it is a great gain when mixed with godliness. You know, when people pray th...

 Abstain from comparing yourself to others, especially those of you who are egged to do this using other's social media persona as the yardstick. Real-life starts when you know who you are, and what you are capable of doing. Let me shock you.  Like Dave Ramsey said, most of the people you envy in the social space buy things they don't need, with money they don't have, to impress people they don't like. So appearance is not always reality. Don't let anyone subject you to any pressure. You're doing just well.  The finish line is there, but every runner starts from different spots; some way behind, some just need a few steps to reach the final line. It's not wisdom to compare your beginnings to someone else’s middle.   You don't know everyone's story. Some ere encouraged and were invested in the best schools to follow their dreams, others had to worry if they had enough food to eat and not die of starvation. Only compare yourself with who you were, it i...

I used to, like many people still do, get stupefied, and presume Nigerian-bred individuals who use cutlery to eat swallows are just being conceited and ostentatious...like showing to be civilized. What happens to their hands, I would mull.  Luckily for me, my former boss instanced a narrative that changed my perspective. She said, paraphrasing, you don't do or learn to do things because of where you are but where you are going. It is called having a next-level mentality. Would you use your hand to eat at an international event, or when invited to dine with high profile people? Won't you be abashed? This is not about culture. The English language is not our culture. Nothing deters you to eat with your hand in your home, but learn to use cutlery because of when you'll need to use it.  This is far-reaching, even beyond food. This is why I don't snide at people who try to mimic the American/British accent. If it something they think would help them, why not get it.  Let you...

 Nigeria at 60 It's alarmingly worrisome that Nigeria is just aging but rarely growing. Only the sycophants of government would agree less. Our status quo is far from being commensurate with our wealth and resources. And to argue that still remaining as one indivisible country is worth celebrating, is a charade. Is like trying to draw fresh water from a bitter source. Leadership is jeopardizing living together as one entity. Our patriotism and resolve are being threatened and severed on daily basis. Incidentally, the country's future looks bleaker now than before. Recent events raise more fear than hope. It is heart-wrenching to see that the number of people who are ready to steal is more than those who are currently stealing. Many unashamedly but braggadociously bent that they are milking the country dry on getting to the corridor of power. This pattern of junk thinking further intensifies my fear. I pray I don't reach my breaking point where I will give up hope on this co...

Inarguably, nothing worthwhile gets done without you being deliberate/intentional about it. Not even living. And this is a pitfall young adults should be wary of. Only those who are ambivalent rely on the rhetorics of luck and charm to achieve something. "Whatever will be will be" is a hoax. What so ever you do not intentionally make be will not be. Unknowingly to people, luck itself is what we make it, not what is thrust upon us. You don't get lucky while sitting on the sofa with arms crossed doing nothing. The harder you work, the luckier you get.  So, being intentional is an act of making our own choices before others' choices make us. It's choosing to create the life you want, rather than having a life, or other people, dictate your actions.  It's taking an inspired action that is in alignment with your words & truth. It's focusing your energy, time, and attention on important things in your life. "Put these abilities to work; throw yourself i...

  I noticed long ago quite a few things about me that I erstwhile considered very bizarre. Gladly, pushing for enlightenment has helped in reading meaning to some of them. One of these is the ability to recognize faces that I have only seen briefly before, or have undergone substantial changes in appearance. Frankly, I didn't see it as something that transcends the ordinary. I just watch it spontaneously find expression in me, more or less like a flashback; even to my amazement most times. I've never read or heard anyone talk about it before, neither have I researched into it until yesterday; and what I found was revealing. Someone had sent me a friend request on Facebook; and on checking her profile, I could easily recognize her face. We were once Sunday School teachers at my parent church some years ago in my hometown. I accepted her request and we exchanged pleasantries, only for her to tell me that I look familiar but she can't place my face. Arrghh! I was stupefied. Fr...

Everything always seems impossible until it is done. I've had this lingering predilection for the creativity/design niche, howbeit, the thought of not being a computer science graduate kept holding me back. I resolved to shrug it off in 2020 and went all out foraging for those skills.  Excitedly, I have many of them at my disposal now, and the ripple effect on me is evident. Now I know it, skills augment your value. You don't get valuable by mere word of affirmation. Your value is the weight of the problems you can solve and the difficulty in finding a suitable replacement for you.  For those thinking 2021 will automatically roll away the bad experiences you had this year, na lie ooo. Time doesn't heal or transform anything, it is what you do with the time that counts. You'll still get the same result if you do the same thing you did in 2020. No magic about that. Our life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change. You want to get something you never had, y...

Remember the movie, 3 Idiots, right? It is still one of my all-time favourite movies globally, not just Bollywood. I doubt if it isn't yours too. Also try to recall that the main character, our very own Ranchoddas "Rancho" Shamaldas Chanchad left us with this profound statement that has changed perspectives. He said, “Pursue excellence, and success will follow, pants down!” The foregoing brings us here. First, about the misnomer of the word, success. Success is subjective but societally defined to only be the fatness of one's bank account. This is probably one of the biggest traps that people fall into. That is why people are in the rat race of making money either by hook or by crook. Success is not just in the amount of money you've made, it is in your degree of value and kindness. And your value is the worth of the problem you can solve and the difficulty of finding a suitable replacement for you.  Incidentally, nobody has become successful by pursuing it, becau...

Interest can be transient as they come, you know! I was discussing the wane in my feeding habit with a senior friend lately; I that hitherto could singlehandedly gulp pounded yam meant for seven people now finds it less appetizing to even eat. His response that I now have another interest/responsibility that flattens the urge for food is irrefutable; conversely to the time my parents shouldered all responsibilities. The same can be said of our present pursuit for money and relevance. It is not incongruous to note at this point that time comes when looking for money and recognition becomes a shadow of something else: Legacy and Succession. These two things people usually tie to old age; and they give more meaning to one's life and living. However, with life expectancy set to reduce as time goes by, provided those life-delimiting factors are not reversed, many people pass on unexpectedly without having to set a legacy neither a succession. So I think it's wisdom to plan fo...

SELFISHNESS v SELF-PRESERVATION Selfishness is thinking of yourself ONLY! Self-Preservation is when you think of yourself, BUT with others in mind! If you we’ve ever travelled by air, you will recognize this image. I used to wonder why the cabin crew always told us to wear our Oxygen mask first, before attending to the passenger sitting next to us, even our children. It felt completely irresponsible and if I may say so, selfish, that adults would take care of themselves first, before taking care of even their children; during a drop in oxygen level‬ Thanks to a NASA research, we now know that “by helping others first or ignoring the mask altogether, a person will begin to lose his or her ability to recognize faces and shapes, and eventually pass out” - HuffPost. It was when I read this that I stopped judging the process. 2020 (+ possibly 2021) is a year of low oxygen level. It’s a year when we are all on a depressurized global airplane cabin. You’re not being selfish for looking...

'Work' and 'job' are two different concepts. Your job is what you have agreed to do for a fixed price. But no one can really pay you enough for your work. Your work is what fulfills you, your life's calling, your bliss. It defines your existence. You may be fortunate, however, to have your job as your work or your work as your job. Jesus knew His work on Earth and this was to provide the answer to the sin question with His death and resurrection. People wanted to give Him a job to become an earthly king. He declined. Many today have lost their work because of the trappings of their jobs. Your job may give you a healthy bank balance but it is your work that credits your life's account. Your job can be taken away but your work is permanent. While doing your job, don't ever lose sight of your work. Whatever you do as a sacrifice on your path that brings joy and hope to others maybe your work. And your job may be a means to accomplishing that. Taking kids off th...

A dreadful disservice you can offer yourself is relinquishing your thinking responsibility to social media (SM). Your mind is too precious to be a dumpsite for every post you stumble upon. Just so you know, the litmus test for you being educated is not in your class of degree but in how well you've trained your mind to think, and the curiosity to learn. Fallen short of this put your degree in question. Absorbing or acting upon without filtering every post on SM will unknowingly but subtly make you find life plunging you into waterloo if you're careless. It is pertinent at this point to know that SM is riddled with more ignorance than wisdom. So consider it expedient you don't patronize or allow every thought to get a foothold in your mind, it doesn't matter the number of likes or who's selling it. Imagine someone coming to terms that being born in Nigeria is a disadvantage already; and that automatically life is leading you 1 - 0. Alas, you see thousands of pe...

One of the funniest narratives of life I have observed is you presuming your friends are living large, and because you aren't in constant contact with one another as hitherto, they probably have abandoned you. You know, possibly, the tendency is high that they also at their own end are thinking you've ostracized them because you appear to be living large and have chosen to remain incommunicado. More often than not, this is far-fetched. Forget about the paparazzi your friends parade on social media; appearance is not always reality. The reality is everyone is still a work in progress. So the onus is on you to work on yourself so you don't get left behind eventually when the harvest is ripe. Moreover, what you need to know is that people are busy and responsibility is piling up. Interestingly, the fact is that a busy person likes those who are busy. Instead of crying foul people are not getting in touch with you, get yourself busy. There may not be a reason for others ...

One of the female presenters on NBC Africa shared how she met her husband. She said when she was an undergraduate, she listed some of the qualities she would want in a husband. Absurdly enough, she also listed a name she would want her husband to bear! Then she met a man whose name was alien to the one on her list. Thank God she didn't rebuff him. It was in getting to know him that she discovered that his middle name, which he didn't often use, was the name on her list! Joseph had dreamt of greatness. But God disguised his greatness in slavery, false rape accusation, and finally, imprisonment. What God wanted to achieve was for Joseph to acquire the skills he would need to function when he finally stepped into greatness! Skill acquisition is heaven's aim during 'disguise' moments! Has it ever occurred to you that the key to your dream position may be disguised in the one you now hold? While at this seemingly lowly position, please apply yourself fully t...

A Newsletter reveals that the founders of the world's five largest companies--Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page--all share two uncommon traits: each of them is a voracious learner; each of them is a polymath. The two traits are also said to be responsible for most of the billionaire's wealth. Meaning from the foregoing, we can deduce that people who detest knowledge, who detest learning are a candidate for poverty. This espouses the assertion that a lot of people in Africa are poor because of a lack of wisdom. Call it wisdom to make wealth, to see opportunities, to create a solution, you're definitely right. Wisdom, as we know, is the right application of knowledge, and the knowledge we acquire as we learn daily. It will interest you to know it is not only poverty, moral decadence, and a dearth of values are likewise gross evidence of society with no commitment to life-long learning. We can easily affiliate this to a number of ignoramuses...

"Be somebody who makes everybody feels like somebody" We live in a world enshrouded by an embedded system of social stratification. Whereas those we presume are at the nadir of social strata often times have become objects of disdain and contempt. They feel no one knows they exist because we ostracize, undermine, and commonize their contributions. Such scenes make me uncomfortable. We made them percept that respect is no longer their lot because we now accord respect according to the whiteness of one's collar job. But in the beginning, it wasn't so.  Respect should not be subjective, as it is a drive towards the egalitarian society we crave. We cannot all become doctors, scientists, lawyers, even accountants. Some people decided to feel the informal sector jobs and they also deserve our respect equally. "Jesus came into this world not a philosopher or a general but as a carpenter. All work matter to God". The Covid-19 scourge has even brought th...

What If? "Access Bank to cut salaries may sack workers" "One in five SA businesses laying off staff due to the impact of Covid-19" What happens if you get fired from a job you prayed and fasted to get? What if you get sacked from a job that you are already building your retirement plans around? There was a drought in Israel that had culminated in a famine and God instructed Elijah where to go to be fed. "Get away...and hide by the Brook of Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. And it will be that you shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there" 1Kg.17:3-4. But something puzzling happened! "And it happened after a while that the brook dried up..." Vs 7. How could the brook dry up when it was God that led the prophet there?! Does that mean that God can open a door that ends up being shut? Absolutely yes! But when that happens, it means He has provided an alternative! "Then ...

"There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people" G.K. Chesterton The world present predicament predisposes everyone to a state of boredom. Conversely, human beings are relational beings. That's why one of the greatest punishments you can mete on anyone is solitary confinement. The individual can be bored to stupor. Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves? Howbeit, as we try to stay afloat of the #covid19 pandemic and its downturn, we need mental energizing activities to cheer us and lighten up our day. One of these is the #GoogleWordCoach game. Do you seek to catch fun? How about developing your vocabulary? Then this is for you. Vocabulary wise, an umpteen number of youths are very shallow. This is distasteful. Their repertoire of words is not any better than that of an elementary school pupil. While your vocabulary repository will afford you an array of words to pick from, it also helps you ace grammar tests or exams. It is ...

In times like these, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Aristotle opined, "fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil". People are ignorantly becoming fear mongers in the guise of getting others informed. If you find yourself relishing in pervading death toll and sad news, please quarantine your mind, because you are subtly making living impossible. Be wise! We should know only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live. Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. What the mind doesn't understand, it fears. So now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less. And know that fear sells until you stop buying it. Meaning that what you fear will come upon you, if you see Job ask him. Don't be engrossed in giving ears to what will dampen your spirit, get obsessed with invigorating exercises that will enliven your day. Albeit, I'm not insinuating disseminating information is bad, lest Satan should get the adva...

It is said that our deepest emotional need is the need to feel loved. When we feel unloved we struggle just to survive. Love has power. It heals. Quintessential of love's healing power is seen in Rob's story, who had a terrible accident that he wasn't sure he would be able to walk again. When asked what enabled him to come through that horrible experience, his answer was simple: “Love,” he said. “That’s the only way I could have made it". You'll be inundated to know that we may inadvertently lessen the chance of survival of some Covid-19 patients (I pray not), not because of the virulent of the virus but just because of feeling unloved. I am aware that stigmatization, contempt, and ill-treatment have been raising their ugly heads, even by some health officials on the front line.  I've also read a plethora of malediction hurled at the country's arch-enemy politicians who tested positive for Covid-19. The truth is wishing them dead may not even brin...