COMPETING WITH OTHERS

   

You left school, three years ago. Your mates are already serving and working, you look at them and you feel like a failure. You are working but you ran into a friend last week, she has a sweet ride, married, her husband is rich and she’s working in a great firm. You look at your life and decide it is rubbish. She’s leading a better life than you are. Your mates are all married and you are not, you look at them with envy and wonder why your life is cursed. You ask yourself what you did wrong, why can’t you be like them.

  Tonye was your junior in school but now he owns his own firm. He’s a big boy, a confirmed one. He has a house and cars, not rented. You walk into your one room and cry. Why is he successful while you are not? What have you done wrong?

  Every day we look at people and wonder why we don’t have what they have. We tell ourselves their lives are better than ours. We see the clothes, shoes, bags, houses, cars; spouses and we comment to ourselves that our lives are not worth it. We ask God, why does Stella have this and we don’t. That little envy appears each time we see their updates on Blackberry, Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. Sometimes we even add, ‘I’m better than Tony.’ ‘I deserve all this and not her.’

  When we plan, we add ‘I’ll make it more than Tony has already.’ ‘My husband will be better and richer than Funmi’s.’

  Do you know you are in competition with no one but yourself? They are not competing with you. That Tony, Funmi, and Stella you are looking at and basing your life and your success with theirs are not you. You’re not them either. You have had different backgrounds, roads, opportunities, your dreams, desires are all totally different. You may have met Funmi’s husband and you wouldn’t want him because what you want in a man is different from what she wants.  Wherever they are now, you didn’t follow the same path they did. Maybe their family got them the job or they had a nest egg somewhere to start up or their field is in acting while yours is in banking. You are not same with anyone on this planet so why measure your success with theirs?

  Look at your dreams which you alone have and mark your progression and success. Yes, you might both be in banking together and he’s been promoted but you haven’t. He made different choices as they appeared before him. You might even be working in different banking firms or same but in different locales and with different bosses. Why worry your head over another man? Work on yourself and your dreams. You set your score mark for yourself. If you are in A now tell yourself you want to move and work towards getting to B next time. If your friend gets to C, remember you are not in his shoes and you don’t have same thought processes, opportunities and choices and keep moving on with your goals. Accept your life and the choices you’ve made, if you want more make it happen and not condemning your life by calling others better.

  Set your goals higher and move from where you are because you want to. Beat the score mark you had the last time. You are not in competition with me, him, her, them, and us but with you. Beat yourself! I know it's that time of the year when we evaluate achievements and milestones done in the year.

Thank you for reading! Hope my thought helps you somehow as it did me.

 Happy New Year in advance and good luck with your resolutions and plans. Cheers!

THE LAND OF GERINIA!

Once upon a time, in a far away land called Gerinia, lived a great people. The land of Gerinia had comprised of different villages and clans before they were forced to come together under one name. Before they became one, they fought many wars amongst themselves. The land was blessed with milk and honey by the gods. Other villages saw this and wanted to steal it from Gerinia. They were conquered but later became free thanks to some of the noble villagers. The people’s eyes were now open thanks to the invasion. Formerly in the days of yore, they were contented with little, thanks to the merging of the villages and clans into one; they knew there was more available from the different villages. They wanted little no more.
They had to elect leaders for the new village. The leaders all wanted what the invaders wanted, to exploit the people, to take the milk and honey for themselves. Monsters, the lochness monster, goliaths, ruled the magical land. The villagers groaned and cried. They were suffering. They attributed their misery to members of a particular clan that had ruled them repeatedly.
In the village of Gerinia, lived a young man called Elebe. He was from one of the smallest clans. He was blessed with that name by a god. The name was to take fortune from others and give to this young man. He from the poor background and small clan excelled. He that never had shoes growing up. He that was laughed at by others. He understood the game. He seemed quiet and meek from the exterior. He wanted to get to the top. He joined the biggest men in the land. He ass kissed and obeyed. He always took over from others. He carried on until the highest position in the land was within his grasp. He had studied the people well. His name once again played in his favour. He got the town criers, the court jesters and the village drama group to sing his praises. The people listened. They thought to themselves. ‘This young man’s name has been good to him maybe he will bring that goodness to us.’
‘He is from the small clans and not the clan that has put us in so much misery.’
‘He is the saviour we have been waiting for.’
‘He is too good to pass up.’
‘This is the messiah of the people.’
They fought for him. They killed all the men that rose up against their messiah. They admired his gentility and soft speech. The village elders called the men vying for the leadership position to come and address them. Elebe did not go. Elebe might have had good intentions for the people but he lost it on the way. The people excused his absence. He won and became the leader. The people rejoiced with him. They relaxed and said to themselves, our sufferings are over.
Elebe lost his good intentions. The asses he kissed to get to where he was wanted more. He ran and got advisers. He listened to everything he was told and carried them out without questioning. He forgot the people that saw him as their messiah. He turned into the biggest lochness monster the village had ever known and seen. He let them suffer. He would tell them it was for their own good, to make the village bigger and greater. At first, they believed him but this monster grew in size every day. The people cried and killed themselves.
One day, they decided they had had enough when he passed a new heavy law on them. They picked up their hoes, pitchforks and set out to kill the monster named Elebe. Yes, Elebe had lost his good intentions, ambition had shattered it. The villagers decided to be their own messiahs. They fought for their freedom. The villagers of Gerinia looked for different means to vanquish the monster called Elebe but he refused to be vanquished. They decided to elect leaders who would lead them in the fight. One of the elected leaders was called Balour. Balour was a valiant soldier but he was a man. The people listened to him more. They placed all their trust in him. They showered him with praises and submitted all they had to him. Balour felt good. He had never tasted such power before. He thought about all the rubies he could garner from this. He gathered the people and they decided to stop work. No farmers would till the land, no anglers would fish, no palm wine tappers would tap, and the markets would be empty. That day, the villagers trooped out in their thousands. They marched the pathways and the streams. They sang the protest song in unison.
Elebe knew what the villagers wanted but he refused to give it to them. He had worked too hard to get to where he was. He was not going to let anyone ruin it for him. He sent his soldiers, the goblins after them. Some of the villagers were killed. His advisers told him not to worry, that hunger would send the people back home and to their vocations. It did not work, the protests increased. It went on for nigh a moon. Elebe ,called a secret meeting with Balour. He offered Balour rubies and diamonds. They cooked up a plan. He called for an open meeting with Balour, the whole town was aware of this. Balour and his men stormed out of the meeting. They told the villagers that Elebe was not serious. A second open meeting was called. Elebe reduced the law. Balour stormed out, that it was not enough. He told the villagers to stay in their houses. The people sang balour’s praises. Later that day, Balour called off the protest. The people of Gerinia were happy to return to work. They said Balour had tried his best. Balour and Elebe held another secret meeting. They rejoiced, their plan had worked. The people of Gerinia were happy. They had won. Have they??
Remember occupy Nigeria? (written January 18,2012)
Elections are coming; what will be your stand next year?

REVELATIONS

(Welcome to the season of weddings)

 Do you believe in revelations? Do you take them as said or do you pray over them and hope for the best? Let me joggle your mind and give you some clarity.

  Anne and Bryan had been dating since their secondary school days. They were the perfect couple; best friends, lovers and all. People envied them, people admired them. They were the couple you looked at and wondered about what you had. Their relationship was in its tenth year. They were both done with school and working in very good firms. Bryan decided it was time to make her his legally on paper. He proposed and of course Anne accepted. Their families knew each other already, there wasn’t supposed to be any problem. Bryan’s mum decided to take him to her church for prayers before he took that big step. The pastor goes into ‘prayers’ says he has a revelation that Anne isn’t Bryan’s wife that his real wife is on the way. If he gets married to Anne he would never be successful in life and she wouldn’t bear him enough kids.  Bryan’s whole family turned on Anne when they heard. Bryan was forbidden to marry Anne, he was made to see reason and he gave up Anne. A perfect relationship died.

  Segun always attended church. He was a zealous member. There was this lady in church he admired. One day he decided to fast and pray so the Lord would reveal his future spouse to him in a dream. Guess whose face came up, this lady he admired. He went up to her and told her he had a revelation from God that she was his wife. She told him, she was engaged and didn’t get any revelation from God.

  Lola was tired of the single life; she was thirty and was scared her birds would soon be fried up. She met a great guy, Paul and they fell in love. Marriage bells were ringing for Lola. Paul loved her to bits. She followed a friend to a church  after her friend pleaded and she was told that Paul was a good man but Paul’s family was bad that she shouldn’t step into his family meaning she shouldn’t marry Paul. How was Lola going to step away after she had found love after searching for so long?

  Phyllis took her intended to her church and the pastor told her Uche wasn’t her husband that her husband was in the church.

  I could go on and on. I have heard a lot. I’m not trying to judge the power of revelations or shouldn’t I? How do these revelations come about? Are they based on prejudice and bias; maybe the person is not a church member or is from a different tribe? God gave us freewill. Isn't doing this like going to meet a fortune teller or diviner to cast lots for you? What happened to getting married to the person and letting God, lead you on your journey together, trusting in God? And if the revelation is true, doesn’t prayer conquer all, can’t you pray and the problem gets treated by God via prayers? They just say it and that’s it, what the hell happened to praying about it? How do you tell when God says this is the person’s soul mate? Does that really exist in quote? Or do we give these men of God so much power that they can say what they please and we believe it’s from God? What happened to praying after you get the revelation, I ask again?

  Asides my numerous questions, what do you really think about ‘revelations’?  Have you or someone you know ever experienced one? Do you believe these revelations? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter and would you let a revelation stop you? 

 Merry Christmas !