RE: MY POINT OF VIEW: DILEMMA

Yinka is a beautiful girl with a great heart I am yet to fathom. Go for what you want, don’t rush for it. I guess I should start with what you ended your post with.
If you believe that someday your partner will come by divine design, then you should stay in a place where you can be found. Preparing for a relationship does not imply getting desperate, for example, preparing well for an examination does not mean you are desperate about it, it only implies that you intend to write it well, once and for all.
Like you rightly said, people expect you at this stage (final year) to bring forth an achiever or a successful man because you are in a level where you don’t want to play hide and seek games anymore. People may forgive you if you brought an unserious guy in your 100level, but not in your 500, even if they forgive you, I bet you won’t forgive yourself.
Take it or leave it, it takes only a successful person to complete a professional course such as Law. ‘We hardly notice how old we have grown or how successful we have become until we see our peers doing stuff, then we ask ourselves; what have I been doing all the while?’. This is why some girls don’t ever want to say yes, they believe they are still daddy’s baby girl who should not talk to guys even when they go about kissing them.
No one expects you to jump for just any guy, and no one says your ‘right man would show up like a super man’ but have you not chased him away with your – I must take my time?
You are young babe, enjoy your life, but remember also, some of your friends are married, what stops you if you think you are ripe for it.
Most of us don’t ever want to grow up because we are scared of commitments or we prefer the super star that will never come, but the truth is that we will never grow up.
Your friends may not have the convincing or the model relationships, but at least they settled for what they wanted, luckily, it could translate to what they actually need. And don’t be surprised when you get their IV’s, and you hear that they lived happily ever after – that doesn’t happen only in movies (even if they may have their grudges once in a while).
Rome was not built in a day, so are relationships, they are a bond of two imperfect beings, loving themselves perfectly.
I don’t intend to write another book here, but take time to go through the whole book before we know what next to talk about.
For the readers of this post apart from Yinka, you should get the book – MY POINT OF VIEW...relationships and love. YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO LOSE YOUR LIFE!

KNOW THYSELF!

It is so amazing how we feel we know other people when we actually do not know ourselves. Most of the wrong decisions we make today is an indication of the fact that we have not taken time out to study ourselves and know how we have been formed and created. Everyone is carefully and wonderfully made for a specific task which lies ahead.
To some the notion of being black is a catastrophe and a scary nightmare they always want to wake up from, but history has proven that most of the strongest men are blacks. Why not tap into that realm, realize how just important you are and what God would have you do by making you the way you are. No one is born by accident, even a bastard child or an unwanted pregnancy is right in God’s plan and purpose, only when you realize that your birth is not the function of just some sensual craziness or just the mere desire of some two lovers coming together and making love, you would not understand who you are and what you are here to do. In fact your identity and your self evaluation will be limited to who your parents are and what they have in store for you.
Hello, before you were formed in the womb, God had known you and ordained you, that implies that before your parents came together at all, you were known by God, he knew you and set aside a vacuum for you to come and fill and an assignment for you to carry out. The world is not a better place today because you have not taken your place, everyone has a place to stand, a vacuum to fill, a gulf to bridge and a position to occupy, and not until we all take our rightful places, the world will never get better, and also our lives will never have meaning even if we acquire all the riches of the world.
Man’s greatest enemy is not the foes, witches and wizard, it is not the haters or beefers, man’s greatest enemy is the enemy inside. Nothing hurts more than the wrong decisions we make for ourselves. Most wrong decisions are results of the fact that we do not know ourselves.
Life is such that the real and most important things look the least interesting, while the useless things get the most of our attention. Little wonder why we can choose to watch a television series that will last for almost a day and feel no pain or stress about it. Tell the same person to read a few chapter of a book that will change his life, he would feel like the whole earth has been placed on him.
Self knowledge helps us in forming our ideologies and orientations about life which in turn help us to make the choices or decisions which will push us to the place of our success. The Flemish mystic, Jan van Ruysbroek (1293-1381), wrote: "Knowledge of ourselves teaches us whence we come, where we are, and whither we are going"

CONFORMATION vs. TRANSFORMATION

“Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”
The media has moulded our models, we learn what to wear and what not to wear, we learn what colours to blend and what colours will cause a catastrophe. Our ideal guys are the likes of Denrele, Lady gaga, the new Beyonce, even Sean Combs, we want to party hard and it gets so hot we want to take off our clothes.
Sharon Stone teaches us the art of making love, Angelina Jolie teaches us to kiss even if it is our sibling – passionately, Madonna sings our love songs, and even my beloved Pied Piper sings our worship.
Harry Potter models for teenagers, Justin Bieber sweeps the little girls off, Elen Degeneres is my favourite talk show artist, Oprah, our strongest and richest black woman living...INCREDULOUS!
I love Kendra’s smile, I even miss her role at playboy’s mansion, I can’t afford to miss Dr 90210 not that I want a pump up, but that will be a free sight if Modupe wouldn’t let us see.
Ok! Coming back home, P-sqaure reminds me of Usher, Styl Plus used to sound like boys II Men, D’banj and Durella, a clash of personality, and I just can go on and on. The Nollywood is aiming to become like Hollywood, and the movies from Ghana are gradually at that pace.
One of our major problems is globalization, there is an evasion of culture and morality, ours is a sane ethos but we have opened the door to perversion, obscenity and indecency. It’s easier to conform, it appeals to the eyes, appeals to the flesh and makes you feel high above all others – if you’ve never taken ganja, ask those in our music industry, its a norm...CONFROMATION!
Then I asked; where is Sammy? I looked for him at House on the Rock. Whatever happened to Infinity, been looking out for their album? Where does Keffi stand? The last time she was with this aggressive guy...uhm!
Where on earth is Segun Obe, Buchi and my beloved Kush? What’s up with the controversy about Bouqui? Not sure of what Dekunle sings, does he really like Jesu gan? Please where is Gyang? Was ‘Na ba ka’ an attempt to hit the spotlight?
Kore has been stealing my ears for a couple of weeks now and I pray he never stops; Mid Night crew are in a world of their own, they seem to be in another realm; Xtreme is going extreme with the praise groove...wow!
This is actually not about the music or the movie industry, but it is about us as a nation. We have opened up so many doors and the serpent has taken its bite. We get easily conformed that we lose our sense of identity. How can we get transformed? By renewing our minds through what we import into ourselves via the five senses. We must guard our heart because out of it flows the issues of life. Whatever we allow in is what will dictate our lives.
No wonder there is teenage pregnancy here and there, no wonder there is gayism all around, no wonder we can’t seem to stop shouting corruption, no wonder we all get so money driven, no wonder there is...no wonder there are... no wonder there will be... NO WONDER!

YOUR CHURCH SUCKS!!!

There have been bombings and killings all in the name of religion and everyone is scared of his neighbour, everyone is yelling about the inhumane treatment of the faithful. We point accusing fingers at our Muslim brothers, and even the Muslim brothers can’t withstand our pride of calling ourselves God’s children, but that should be understandable.
Understandable, Yea! If not, then what should we say about the bloodless wars that permeate the Christendom? We fight for superiority, my church is ‘tusher’ than yours, God answers prayer more in my church, we administrate more in my church, my pastor is richer than yours... and the list goes on.
We are on a marketing strategy where the church with the best publicity department gets the most of believers. In fact, if you have the power of healing, you have an added advantage because your market would sell more than the orthodox bible believing folks. Also, if there are managers and top shots among your congregation, then graduates will flock there because you have just given them an avenue to secure plum jobs and trust, the tithes will roll in.
Peradventure your pastor happens to be a university graduate, he would understand how to put that godly swag on and portray the sophisticated Jesus. If however, he is a handsome dude, then the number of creamy chics will tripple that of the guys, well not because the ladies are more spiritual though this seems to be the case, but because they hope to get hooked and the guys only come for wife shopping.
By now, the youths would have been running away from their dry old fashioned churches where their pastors still put on coats or ‘shoots’, they would have become rebellious to their parents who are not sure of the spiritual stand of these new fast rising eclectic, according to them, ‘penterascal churches’.
The parents can’t imagine how young people could dress like those going to the disco with high heels, bomb shorts, tubes, jeggings and the heavy make ups like those from the deep down ocean.
When the children are forced to those old churches, they either play music on their i-phones or those who have the devil’s berry will begin to ping. Yet the parents still get blessed in their old churches even if it has gradually become a ritual, and the youth are the most blessed in their new generation churches at least even if not spiritually, they get jobs.
Then the war continues, pastors preaching each other down, religious bodies throwing words around, church leaders beginning to steal members starting with the instrumentalists, offering them jumbo pays (services that used to be purely a sacrificial offering to God), sadly it is usually the old churches that teach these young ones the art of music. We hide under the false name of CAN as if all is well; we know all is not well.
But can we just turn back to our elder brother’s concern? I remember he had a deep concern he cried out to the father – that they may all be one! That they may all be one! That they may all be one! Only the father knows what we can achieve when the Evangelical is a brother of the Baptist, and the Presbyterian is not suspicious of the Pentecostal, the Methodist is not bad mouthing the Anglican, and we all embrace the Catholic, stopping the protest we know nothing about.
Only then can we achieve all that he expects of us; that we may all be one!

If I Die Tonight!

I live my life like its all i have,
I am sorry it is,
I drink the hours like none is coming next,
but more crates appear,
I work the work now hoping to relax someday,
but that day has never come,
yet i know time waits for no one to undo what you earlier did.

If i die tonight, would i smile to my grave
or weep with the lot of how wasted i am become?
If i died tonight, would my epitaph read the truth
and throngs, flock my bed - nay he can't be gone?
If i should die tonight, would my work speak for me,
or some folks discover my unpublished works
and my pride becomes post humous?

If i die tonight, I want to gladly laugh at them that cry,
oh! what folly, I step to a greater realm,
where death is defeated.

I sure wont die tonight,
for there are more grounds to cover.

TO MY CLASS MATES: TO HELL WITH SCHOOL

Getting admission into any university this age is like winning a lottery, even though unlike a lottery, you will have to pay all through your studies, but you would feel most blessed among the thousands of applicants who have no where to go.
Most of us got into school with the mindset of making something meaningful out of our lives or in most cases, going through the norm of getting educated, but have we ever had time to sit back and ask ourselves, do we really need to go to school? Or have we merely succeeded in wasting some four or five years of our lives?
Someone might be wondering if I am one of those who hate the idea of education, but to your disappointment, the reverse is the case, I am an Apostle of good education, but our form of education in this part of the world has discouraged most of us. Nevertheless, I am not dispirited; I still understand the value of good education even if we have not gotten it right.
In this age, the only difference between an educated person and an uneducated person is the certificate, take the paper away and they are at par. Maybe the uneducated fellow has even learnt more from the school of hard knocks than the fresh prince who only knows to speak English well. Mind you, English doesn’t solve economic problems, good English doesn’t fix mechanical problems, English may not put food on the table, in fact, too much English complicates issues, we claim to be who we are not, and we complicate issue with too much vocabulary and grammatical nonsense.
At this critical time, when we have just a step to move out of the citadel of learning, we must ask ourselves several hard questions, some of which should include – have you achieved what you aimed to achieve out of school? Do you feel qualified to go out to the labour market offering yourself as a service provider? Have you added enough value to yourself that can attract the wealth you would need to survive? Do you feel the same way you felt when you came to school in your first year? Do you need to add some other qualifications to your present degree to become more relevant? What more can you do?
It is no more news that we are wealth craze in this age, but until we understand that wealth answers to value, we may not amount to anything. The more value we add to ourselves, the more wealth we attract, the more problems we can solve, the wealthier we become, the more service we provide, the more we are able to create wealth. Anything besides these will be questionable and even if it creates wealth, may not last. So if you have acquired wealth through fraud, watch out, it is merely seasonal.
Get value on yourself, don’t just go to school, get schooled, only then will you become proud of yourself and the person you would become.

TAKE CHARGE

It burst forth from nothingness and filled the universe,
the waters, with its limitless depth
called forth the earth; the dust that is now known,
the galaxies all came on a procession,
the beauties in the Milky Way.

All creatures marched into existence –
the sunfly, the hippo,
the leviathan, the tadpoles,
all the known and the unknown,
they all marched into existence.

The earth groaned at conception,
the elements, unresting, cried at a crescendo,
the plant kingdom sprouted,
the thick forest gathered a moss,
and the mountains found their way.

But all these at His spoken words.

He raised his brow and folded his sleeves,
touched the dirt and formed from clay,
He gave it head that housed his brain,
gave it hands to from like him
armed with legs to possess all the created.

And the potter took a little step backwards,
took a deep breath and breathed in it.
It came alive and heard the words;
Take possession, Multiply, Take charge.

But he went aslumber and forgot the words,
Take possession, Multiply, Take charge,
he went asleep and forgot the words,
Take possession, Multiply, Take charge,

And then he died!