LIFE! Sometimes we understand it, most times we don’t. A lot of times we need explanation to our everyday experience, we often ask the question “why me”? But we still don’t get answers, or in any way, change the fact that we usually end up in places we had hoped we wouldn’t.

My mum use to say “life is beautiful”! I find it difficult to relate to that statement, I consider it more of literally speech, than a reality.
Well, life itself is a game, and games are usually, unpredictable. It’s like a journey of adventure, searching for hidden treasures in unsure places and hoping to get the best result as much as we continuously work tirelessly in our search. Some people are lucky to find their treasures after a short search, and some had to search for a long-long time. Some however, stop searching after a few walk into the search, they consider it a meaningless search. “How would one go on a journey with no map, no torch light, no food or water, no guiding rules, and annoyingly, no team members? Just one man in a dark lonely world”…, one would say. But regardless, we have to play this game to the end, or till our time is out. You can opt out along the line though, but that’s your loss.

In the cause of this adventure, we get to meet people who are also in this adventurous journey of life, we most times connect with some and create a team with them, moving towards the direction everyone in that team moves, until we get to realize we are in the wrong team after a while, and then leave to find greener pasture with another team. We go on and on looking for the right part and answers to all this confusion we go through.

We meet the good and bad people in this journey, the bad ones are those who would do everything to put others down but there are still good people, who are kind enough to help us up when we fall and hold us up. we should appreciate them.

As we keep playing the game, our time gets shorter. Everyone is given a time in this journey and our times are different, some are much, and some are less, and so is our purpose too. Some persons find their purpose on time and get their treasures before their time elapses, some don’t, and then, they are out of the game. The more we search, the more we spend hours, days, weeks, months, years, and decades, the more weaker we become, until we can no longer carry ourselves. We then slow down our partners, as they help sustain us a little longer. But no matter how much they try, we still have to go home. And so, we die, and are buried by our partners who have become loved ones.

This is life. No matter what anyone would do, they can never change it. This is the constant nature of life. It is given, and taken by the referee of the game. The amount of time you spend in this journey, doesn’t really matter, what matters, is how much you did during this journey. The lives you touched, the people you helped up when they fell, how much love you gave out, and finally, getting the treasure (Whatever that is).

Legacy is leaving your light behind for people to see their way to finding their own treasures. You know you have lived a fulfilled life, when your presence can still be felt after you are gone. Now that’s the beauty of life. We don’t get a guide to it, but we are expected to live it, and as well, help others live. Indeed, life is beautiful!

BEFORE YOU GIVE UP

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying ‘I will try again tomorrow.’
–Mary Anne Radmacher, American author and artist

Welcome! Here’s another day to Survive!
BEFORE YOU GIVE UP is a piece that has been carefully chosen with great write ups to keep you high if you’ve lost your vibes on your journey to survival. You are not in this alone. You’ve got a family! Smiles…

It was a rainy evening, the winds blew like a roaring lion, lightening sparkled in the sky, the only voice heard in the turbulence was the quirky sound of birds in the hood and the jam of the wooden windows that was continuously beaten to the wall by the wind.
Soma laid on a mat in the dark, faced to the ceiling he could barely see, he counted the spaces of the ceiling in his mind eye. He had just returned from another failed interview. All efforts seem to do nothing but only shatter every piece of his dreams. It’s been 3years since he graduated from college and ever since, he’s been living off mini jobs that can barely afford 3square meals for him. Getting a job too was another miles of no destination, he thought. What was he going to do? Bills were pilling up everyday and he just couldn’t take it anymore.
“I’m a looser! A failure! Good for nothing!” He cried out…
The next day, he was found dead in his room. He gave up!…

This fiction story occurs everyday in reality. People go through phases that a lot of us cannot comprehend. Many of them died with their dreams, only a few push hard to the edge and are still pushing. Are you one of these few? Or are you one of those cowards who is considering suicide because you feel life is been unfair to you?
So what if in the process of trying, you got scorned at, mocked, discouraged and all of that, does that become a reason for you to stay down and back out of your dream? Who’s loss?

“Hope. It’s like a drop of honey, a field of tulips blooming in the springtime. It’s a fresh rain, a whispered promise, a cloudless sky, the perfect punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. And it’s the only thing in the world keeping me afloat.”
Tahereh Mafi

Okay… I’m sure we have heard this statement countless times and we probably find it common and meaningless but it is true that “you are what you believe you are”. The universe has a way of making what you constantly see and believe, a reality. This isn’t a religious statement, this is a fact. john assaraf in one of his blogs talked about the quantum physics which is the study of how the world we cannot see operates, it says ‘whatever we focus on and emotionalize often, is what we will attract and actually see in the quantum field of possibilities…’
So you see that the environment, negative words and attitude of people towards you, does not affect your life in any way, rather, you are the problem you have, you don’t see, and you don’t believe. Until you begin to see and believe in a positive realm, you continuously invite the wrong effect from the universe. The fact remains that only losers put a man with vision down. A man who is in-line with his vision and is dedicated to it will never put his fellow down. You become a looser too when you join them to cast yourself down.

“If one dream should fall and break into a thousand pieces, never be afraid to pick one of those pieces up and begin again.” – Flavia Weedn

Motivational speeches and blogs will only do little, the job is yours to do. It’s your job to fix you, motivate you, raise you up and push you forward no matter what. So look inside this beautiful you and decide what you take in and put out. Here’s my daily tip; stand in front of your mirror every morning and give yourself the positivities you need and all the good things you want to hear but your environment don’t say to you. You owe yourself that. I’m not going to promise you a smooth ride, but I promise that you will feel a lot better every day as you pursue that vision.
What if I told you that 10 years from now, your life would be exactly the same? I doubt you’d be happy. So, why are you so afraid of change?
–Karen Salmansohn, best-selling self-help author

THE 50-50 RULE

“At times, our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” – Albert Schweitzer

The feeling of gratitude is a magnetic force that affects a great part of our lives. It beautifies our lives, and open doors for us. (A lot of us are ignorant of this.)
Many of us have been engraves with the feeling of entitlement, we’ve built our towers high enough to the point were we feel everyone lives in our favour and that we only deserve everything we get. Some of us may have gotten the dream job, the dream life and we can now say “Life is beautiful”. Most of us however, are still struggling with just being able to provide daily bread, and a few of us haven’t met the miracle of daily bread yet. But there’s a truth behind this; as an individual, our lives are from stage to stage and every stage should be considered a gift.

I’ll try so hard to be realistic with my blog, so I’ll share my story from time to time. There’s one thing my mum taught my siblings and I, it’s the act of gratitude. I remembered many years ago, we had nothing at home for dinner and we knew mummy didn’t buy anything too. So we asked her “mom what are we having for dinner”? My mom smiled. So we thought she must have kept some goodies somewhere and was going to ask us to go get it. She only managed to say “when I know, I’ll tell you” so we waited. Later that night, my mom woke me up to eat, I hurriedly got up because I was so hungry. I didn’t even look at the food, I just scooped a spoon and munched. It tasted strange, so I asked “mom what is this”? And she replied, “It’s boiled paw-paw” in the midst of my confusion, she added, “you will like it, it’s medicinal and good for your stomach”. Seriously? Who eats boiled paw-paw? But I remembered saying “thank you” to her (even though I couldn’t eat much of it and had to sleep on empty stomach), she still gave her usual response “thank God”. We lived in that condition for quite a while, but we never felt bad about it or compared ourselves with anyone. We learnt to be contended and be grateful for the little we had and to give to others like we don’t lack.

The 50-50 rule states that; ‘to whom much is given, much is expected’. But I’ll like to rephrase this; ‘Whoever expects more should give more’. Most of us worry a lot about things that haven’t been fixed in our lives yet, we allow depression take the best part of us. Challenges ranging from Lack of employment, inadequate resources, marriage crises, poor academic performance, relationship failure and all of these negativities has pulled us to the lowest point. But before you kill that beautiful heart, carefully look around you, look at your friends, family, health, past achievements, compliments from others, every little assistance you’ve gotten, and this beautiful piece of writing you read on my blog today, there’s definitely something to be grateful for. Now that’s your 50.

“It is necessary, then, to cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”– Wallace D. Wattles

How often do you say thank you? Now take 2 minute to reflect on all the good things you’ve got and say ‘thank you!’ thank you to God, the universe, your family, friends, spouse, staffs, teachers, neighbours and anyone you’ve come across who was nice to you. Because they all contributed one way or the other to your advancement.

To protect yourself from others hurting you, you locked everyone out but at the same time you locked yourself in. All you now have is yourself for company but you never took the time to quieten all those negative voices in your head. You spent so long running away from you, escaping with different vices over the years that now you have locked yourself in those voices end up hurting you worse than anyone else ever could. Don’t lock the doors, that could lead you to freedom

–Sope Agbelusi

Have you ever felt so displaced that you totally give up to your limited space?
I’m guessing the answer is yes.
Many of us have been, or are currently in that position of our lives where we feel like we are nothing but one tiny insect in this big world.

Until recently, my life has been occupied by a strange partner. One I allowed into my life unknowingly. (You should be asking at this point who this strange company is). Well, He’s someone you know too well and have spent good amounts of time with him at some point in your life.

The world is really a big strange place, and we all came with a purpose to make the world what we want it to be. However, as our purposes are different, that’s how different people are in character, principles, attitude and morals. Accept it! People will not always think and act in the manner you expect them to. There’s going to be some who accepts and agrees with you and some who won’t. Regardless, don’t give room for the strange company.

WHO IS THE STRANGE PARTNER?

Growing up without my Dad in my life, and my Mum who was hardly ever available for my siblings and I, made growing up really difficult. Also considering the fact that my mum wasn’t able to provide enough for us what other kids had on a platter of gold, made it even more difficult to fit into the circle of rich kids and so we always felt rejected.
I realise as we (my siblings and I) grew older, we became inward and timid. We had no friends, and we grew up finding friendship in each other.

I decided I didn’t want to be that person, I want to be more. I want friends, I want to be valued, I want to be rich, I want to be a lot of things (and I’m still working on that). So in my journey to finding a greener pasture, I came in contact with the Strange partner; self doubt, fear, low self esteem, regret and more intimidation. I have been neglected, talked down at, disregarded, and abused.
Being the human that I am, I did what everyone would normally do; get back in my shell and avoid the world.
But that hasn’t worked so well for me either. It shut doors for me, it distracted me from the target, it kept me stagnant, I gave up many times, it dragged me ten steps backward. I allowed this stranger take a better part of my life.

SEND HIM PARKING
Most of us have experienced worse. We’ve been abused, maltreated, neglected and all of those stories you have in your head right now. But let’s take our minds off these negativities for a moment and look at the brighter side.
You could turn these negativities to your own advantage you know? You can transform yourself from being the loser to an achieving winner.
Think about it, those persons who thought you were not to be regarded, all of a sudden, now wants to recognise you and connect with you.
It’s easy!
Change your mindset and attitude.
Now we all know that we cannot control the way people react towards us, but we can control our reaction to their actions.

Your Self esteem develops when you finally begin to see your worth. To achieve this, set targets and goals for yourself either in business, academics or in personal development. If you are able to see this through, you will feel the ego and this will give you a sense of self worth.

Read inspirational books or contents.
Reading is one good way to grow. You decode words that sticks to your mind eye, so you always get reminded of them.

Release yourself. Not everyone will still regard you, but you should never stop trying to reach out. Always be open to meet people, make new friends. Take your self seriously, don’t ever let anyone walk over you, always speak up for your right when necessary.

First impression matters a lot (I learnt this the hard way) always be careful with your approach and physical appearance anywhere you find yourself.
These are some of the few steps I took that totally transformed me. Now I can boldly stand in a conversation with anyone, I have more friends now, and I have successfully handled leadership roles in a short time now. I’m still looking forward to better days ahead.

I hope this inspires you to make that bold step to come out of that miserable shell and leave that strange partner behind. Welcome to the new you. I can’t wait to see what you turn out to be.
There’s a lot to share, but I’ll get to share much more as we go. Feel free to send a message, I’ll message back as soon as possible. Cheers!

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton