When i Get Older.

Long time ago....ok not really too long ago, when i was a kid, then we kids talk among ourselves,and very often we talk about what we would get or become as we get older. Then it was a long wishlist without limitations, we always say we would get or buy anything we like,build whatever we wanted, travel to see the whole world. Then the whole world was our cataloge and we just place our imaginary orders.

"i will buy a 4 cars and buy a 20 storey building when i grow up" Now, there was a little problem we did not see, we did not know that we had to work towards all this, we had this idea that the universe would just give you the things you want as you grow up....lol.... we did not see the things we wanted as a problem, we only saw growing up as the major challenge, our only limitation was just Growing up! If we could just grow up now now now! So we were always looking forward to just growing up.
We believed all things are achievable. we believed all lies were true. We had only one problem, we trusted and had too much faith in anything.

Then we started growing up, and something changed, we began to see the world differently, we had to read hard to pass examinations,we had to wash our cloths and do all the household chores, we realised that nothing comes for free, that the growing up we wanted was an illusion, our idea of growing up was wrong.....growing up is a pain!
We realised this and we figured out how the world truly operates, one can not just wish something to reality, NO! You have to work for it. Growing up doesnt make things for you, you make the things that make you a Grown up....It was a devastating discovery! Now we trust nobody and have faith in nothing!

Then after the realisation, most of us lost something,s ome found theirs back, majority dont even know its gone, and that is our "Child heart", the ability to wish and dream, and here is where the problem actually lies. When we figured out that the world only gives what you worked for, we changed with the new reality, we became men and stopped dreaming, we then started working towards greatness, but i guess we forgot something, that a great man is one who have not loss is child heart.

Some of us wish we where still children but most of us wish to grow slower,gently and easily, cos the world is just running too fast and its carrying us on its tracks and we are just gettig old too quickly.

All this flashed between my head as i rush up this morning to jump into the very busy bustling monday morning. It reminded me of the days when i say "when i get older" and how much i have realised the difference between being a grown up and actually growing up.

To all of you out their go get your child heart back as we are preparing for the christmas and New Year. Season Greatings Y'all.
When i grow older, i will travel the whole world.....i still believe that!

Far Far Away Land

Early yesterday morning, on my way to work,still furious that i have to go to field that morning haven just returned from one the previous day, i saw a small school boy around the corner, hiding beside a car. There he was counting a huge sum of cash and at the same time trying to remove some and hide the rest. So i confronted him, then he claimed that it was his school fees. I had no choice but to believe him,i wish i knew what was on his mind at that very moment,but i cant, and i will never.

Einstien said "in our endeavor to undestand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears its ticking, but he has no way of openinig the case. If he his ingenious he may form some picture of the mechanism which is responsible for all the things he observes, but he may never quite be sure his picture is the only one which could explain his observations. he will never be able to compare his picture with the real mechanism and he cannot even imagine the possibility of such a comparison."

Now am trying to relate this to the human mind,one can never open to see its contents we only see the actions performed as a result of the thoughts going through the mind, although we may try to describe the mind in terms of the body's physical output,but we can never be sure that our assumption is right.
Like the man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch ,we everyday try to understand the thoughts and intentions going through the human mind, we even have psychologists to this effect.

The truth is the mind is a far far away land, it's as far as one can imagine, and worse still, no one has been there. You can only take my word for anything i tell you, that is why deception is an attribute of the human race.

just imagine,if we could read the human mind! Yes! There would be no secrets, no intentions, what you think, i know!

There is a popular saying "if you study me you would not Graduate" that is true because the mind is dynamic and unstable most times.
Most of us dont even know what is actually going on through our own mind, talk little of someone else understanding it.

So the next time Facebook asks you "whats on your mind" be honest and just say " i dont know" or " i cant explain".

Secrets are sold out.

Secrets! used to be what people dont want others to know. The very wrong you have done and trying to hide, yes that was wayback upto the mid 80s. Then personal sex life used to be a secret,even a ladies menstral period was kept a secret. Then you can hardly know who slept with who ,even the color of ones underwear was kept a secret. Think of anything personal and back then it would be  a secret.

Then in Nigeria, our sitting rooms were the only public place for visitors, our bedroom was sacred and was kept a secret from others,one can only imagine how a friend's bedroom looks like,but one will never enter.Thats to show you the extent of how our private lifes was kept a secret back then in Nigeria.

But all of a sudden! like a sonic boom came the Socialising spirit and what we all didnt realise about socialising was;it was a secret sharing game,he who shares most secret wins! The internet is the propeller, now you can tell the whole world about your life in a minute.

As we were socialising,we are sharing more and more secret, we started telling more and more about ourselve,then we wanted more,we talked about our sex life,we wanted more we talked about everything to the minute detail.

Then we ran out of secrets,we started looking for more secrets at all cost cos we needed to share secrets,thats when paparazzi came up, then most of us got sold out on our secrets.....we started making new secrets by either intentionally doing things or making up lies. Now all of us are addicted to secrets,we buy papers,search the internet just for secrets.....truth is that we have run out of secrets. Secrets are sold out.

In Nigeria now, bedrooms are the most public place for visitors,people rarely use the sitting room, we now feel cool sharing our privacy, if you arent sharing secrets, people see you as Anti-social!

Anybody would believe anything that is whispered, even me!

No Matter What.

I can never get tired  listening to one of Boyzone's greatest hit single "No matter what".The song inspires me.
The lyrics are daring, it simply is a song of courage,encouragement, determination, hope, difference and love.

No matter what people think or feel, no matter what they say, No matter what they do,it doesn't change who you are no matter what!
No matter how barren a land is, a dream is being born.No matter how long it rains the sun is will still shine.

If you find a drunk walking on the right path home,does the fact that he is drunk make the road wrong? NO!People always assume that the path a drunk thread is wrong,which is mostly not true.
Point is,what is good is good! And a drunk on a right path doesn't make the path wrong,its being drunk that is wrong. So No matter what goes on in ones life,what gets to you is what matters.
No matter the source, No matter what challenge you face,it doesn't matter so long as you succeed.

And as i am right now listening to the song,i am really trying to figure what really matters, things i liked weeks back don't appeal to me any longer, what i hold dear changes with respect to what is happening at a point in time in my life. What matters to me might change as i change in age,status and thoughts....but what don't change with me No matter what are things that don't matter...i guess we all have that...some things wont just matter No matter what.

The most important things to me that don't change No matter what, are not things they are people!

SANDHOUSES.

We all know that we most times get thrilled when we dont know the end of an event or situation. we wait patiently to see how it all rounds up, most times we wait anxiously at other times we wait with excitements. But the great thing is, we know how the the most important thing in the world is going to end! We know how our life is going to end! Am not talking about afterlife but only life here on earth.

But when it comes to life its a different ball game all together, we all know that we are going to die someday, so why are we so thrilled about life? we know the end of any life is death, we know the begining is birth, its easy to analyse any life......you are born, you live, and you die.
I figured out that when it comes to life,the most important factor is not the end,its not the beginning no! its in the living!
The quality of life is determined by how the life was lived.

I read a story somewhere that compares life to kids building sand houses on the beach, they use there bucket,parkers and stuffs...mould the house on the shore and wait for the ocean tides to come sweep the house away,and when the evening comes they park their tools run to their dad,take his hand and go home happily.
Only if adults can live life like kids building sand houses on the beach..but in contrast, adults build different castles,buy toys keep the sand house lively and when the evening comes and the ocean tide is approaching, they fret, try to secure and keep their sand house from harms way,trying to aviod the destruction by the tide, you see them worried and disturbed hoping the tide would stop,so they can keep their precious sand house!

Both adults and kids know that when the evening comes the tide will come,the difference as kids is we are ready to go home cos we know the tide would destroy the house,but as adult we are never ready to leave,we are trying to avoid the inevitable.

Now both kids and adults know the end,but each reacts differently to it,one is ready and the other isnt......the end is known..the living is the most important. We all know the end!

WILD in the ZOO.

The zoo is not really for tamed animals,its for animals that cant be tamed, and as such needs restrictions.
I like comparing the world we live in to a zoo,we arent all really tame,we are very wild, that is where law, morals and order comes in,all for restriction.
To be wild is our real nature, that is why when most of us have the oppurtunity to  be wild,we run so wild like a  forever caged dog, do so much jumping around and so much unthinkable things.

But some of us have been so docile that when we have the oppourtunity to be wild we find out that we cant hunt again just like the lion "diego" in "ice age" movie.

It took a lovely lady in her early 20's to show me that i am among the latter category. Gosh am worse than diego. I have totally lost my hunting skill.
The sharp contrast between the zoo and the wild is;life in the wild is of jungle justice, no orderliness,no restrictons,no rules!
The zoo is the absolute opposite.
Trying to live a wild life in the zoo,is what i find pleasurable,it involves being wild even in the zoo.
To be wild in a zoo is to be sharply different, humans are born wild ,but grow in a zoo. Always doing or acting the exact opposite way of how they really feel, sometimes they do so much uncomfortable things just to blend among the other zoo mates.

I met a girl who lived her own life in a zoo,who asks for what she wants,who is courageous and dare to be real. For the first time in my plenty years i saw someone living a wild life in a zoo. She defined exactly what being wild and original is. And i can tell she is enjoying her life. She changed my life in about six hours,not by words but actions. Although some of what she does are not totally well with me but she deserves a credit!

Dare to break the rules, ignore the norm,get what you want, ask,dont assume you wont be given,fall in love, even if its for a minute,get vulnurable,always exceed your limits. There are chances that you get more "NO"s than yes, but you would definately get more yes than someone who never asked.....stay open,stay wild.

The funny thing is that those that live a wild in the zoo normally get what they want,sometimes it takes a while, if not immediately. like in her case,she didnt get it imediately but am sure she would get it soonest!

How to live before u die - by Steve Jobs

This is d first time i av to post sumtin i dint write mysef on my blog,am breakn protocols for Steve Jobs,am stayn hungry n foolish! as he advised....pls do read it,if u avnt seen it b4, its a wonderful speech abt beginnin of life ,love and death.RIP jobs.


I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

LIKE A DOG

I always wonder what it takes to love,since everyone is crazy about it,well it also includes me (sometimes).I heard a story about a girl who was heart broken and promised never to love again,but her counsellor told her,you would love again,but then you would say "i have never fallen like this before,this one is different".

He was right she did fall in love and of course, she admitted she had never fallen like that before and that it was different. Now that builds in me more curiosity,
Why would people always return to what shattered them,i mean people literally find love,(well love find others) awhile after been heartbroken.
Then it struck me that love itself never come in same form,it's always different,if you were high in your previous love,the next one would take you higher.

I know love is said to be expensive and all that,all the Chinese dinners,expensive gift,blah blah and blah,but i think the best form of loving can be emulated from a dog.....OK wait not Dog to Dog love,that makes the female dog a B***h,but Dog to human kind of love.
Ever seen a dog love it's owner,the Dog keeps following the owner everywhere,very faithful, very loyal, ever present doesn't care if you have a car a house or money.

Give them your heart and they would give you theirs back totally and uncompromising,they would live with you in a hut,closet and eat what you eat.Dogs rarely dump you(except for one very nasty dog in my neighbourhood that switched owners cos of good food,Lol).
So if you want to love love with only your heart,requesting only your mates heart,just like a Dog,but don't behave like a dog...Just love only love like a DOG!

NOT MY BUSINESS

 At the time when racism was at its height in the U.S, it was then worse in the southern part of the country.
A young boy left home to spend time with is relatives in the south,while there, he dared by talking to a young white lady.
On seeing this, two white male beat this boy to death. They were charged to court and a jury composing only of whites read the verdict after hurriedly going through the court session. The two guys were found not guilty and they were freed.
After the court session,the mother of the boy said,"2 months ago,i was living in a lovely apartment,i had a lovely job and a lovely son, anytime i hear blacks are being persecuted in the south,i usaully say it's not my business,it's the business of blacks in the south. Now i know better,if only had been fighting along."

With all the recent bomb blasts and Northern crisis in Nigeria,i really do not mind the news much,cos i feel am not really involved,either directly or indirectly,though i always felt terrible about the bombings and all that,but have never done anthing conciously to protest against it.
But the recent U.N building bomb blast in Abuja,affected the mother of a friend of mine, that made me wonder,how close does this have to get to all of us before we take responsive action?

If there is anything we can stand for,now is the time!One dont have to feel the heat before believing that there           is fire burning,the flames are good enough.

Before you drop that newspaper or change the T.V station that talks about violence in the North think again. Is it really not your business!

HUMAN NATURE!

I have seen people who think life is a waste of time, and some who think having kids is totally absurd,have seen others who feel music is the world's worst invention, have also heard of people that see no big deal in eating human flesh, i mean meat is meat afterall!

One time too many,i have asked myself,"why do people act the way they do?"am not trying to reincarnate the book by Tim Lahaye,really am not,i have never fully read that book ,but ofcourse have flipped through the pages a couple of time, out of curiousity of what really is in the book. Tim lahaye wrote so much stuff which eventually from  the world point of view did justice to the question, but from my point of view, it brought to my mind more questions(maybe cos i never really finished or even started the book).
To me he(Tim Lahaye) brought so much vocabulary and terminology i needed to cram just to understand how people behave.That itself is more complex than the problem that the book is trying to solve. That doesnt still mean the book isnt great,ofcourse it is!it sold over a million copies!

Truth is, i want a quick answer like, people act the way they do because ........., if you cant explain something to a seven year old, then you probably dont know what you are talking about.

A story was told of a man trying to save a drowning scorpion, the scorpion was drowning and each time the man reached out his hand to  rescue the scorpion it stings the man, yet the man kept on trying to save the scorpion and the scorpion kept on stinging the man.
Someone watching nearby amused, said to the man "why are you hurting yourself,stop trying to save what continually hurts u", then the man said,it's the nature of the scorpion to sting,and it is my nature to save! This man obviously understands that despite the stinging from the scorpion this scorpion actually meant no harm,it is just responding the way it should when it feels danger around,though this man is not trying to hurt the scorpion,but how do you explain that to a poor scorpion. It's simply its nature!

But understanding the way people behave comes with a very heavy price,which is one becoming judgemental! If you are not GAY, you will never understand what gays see that get them attracted to same sex!
The world is now so civilized that a stone can be sold as a Gem, if the seller can explain his/her way out,i mean the world is now so civilized that one can explain away morals successfully.

Human ability to learn fast is also one of our greatest disadvantage,we learn so fast that we outlearn things,we go too deep that we imagine and think the unimaginable.
Human nature is learning,learning leads to development of human mind,the mind determines who you become.Imagine someone reading or following Karl Marx hmmm...........

Bottom line,human nature is intelligent, diverse and unexplainable, but not impossible to understand!

Atura de Atocha, Life & Poetry: LIFE IS LIKE BOXING!

Atura de Atocha, Life & Poetry: LIFE IS LIKE BOXING!: "Life has been defined by many as different things.Some say life is like onion,it opens up in layers,others say life is like a crossroad, you..."

LIFE IS LIKE BOXING!

Life has been defined by many as different things.Some say life is like onion,it opens up in layers,others say life is like a crossroad, you choose your own part.Sport men say life is a game, farmers say it is like a seed and so on......
All of them are actually correct,because all of the explanation above are all subset of life,making life a huge universal set.This is why life can be explained in so many ways.
Ofcourse,i have my own analogy about life, Personally i think life is more like a sport, particularly boxing.

Boxing is the best form of sport that relates life to the world.
You endure,persevere,persecute,restrain,defend,attack,empower,rest,refrain etc and so many times you practice,watch out,starve,encourage yourself.You have to have self belief, be self alert,trust yourself and when you lose confidence you have to take risks!

Unlike other sports,in boxing if you are not well prepared,you dont just lose,you injure.You dont just get your ego and confidence bruised,your body and tooth are also bruised.Just like life if you are lose,you dont avenge,you go back re-prepare and when you are ready if the one who defeated you has lost the title to someone else,you dont fight him anymore NO!you go after the person with the title cos if  you beat the one with the title,you automatically beat the one who defeated you initially.Then you are the champion!

 Boxing again like life is not just about getting prepared and winning,No!There is more to life than that. Not all who prepare well  take the day, you need more than just preparaton.You also need the will,preparation give the skill but the will is something you develop inside you. You need both the will and skill to survive. like Mohammed Ali said :

"Champions are not made in gyms,they are made from something they have deep within;a desire,a dream,a vision.They have the last minute stamina,they have to be a little faster and they have to have both the SKILL and the WILL,but the WILL must be stronger than the SKILL."
Fellas am boxing Forward!

THE BLINDEST BLIND DATE.

Two nights ago,i was sleeping and possibly snoring because i was very tired,and i still must be at work that morning, only to be awoken by my cousin's (whom i share the room with) late night call at around 4:00am.
The problem was not even the call he was making and all the funny absurd things he was saying over the phone,but the person on the other end of the line. He was talking to this girl he never met before, they actually met virtually on this mobile chat called 2go.Funny enough i know the girl ,i have seen her before and  i cant just talk my cous out of the chick.

Now  blind dates are lovely if you never get to see your date,but believe me, majority of the blind dating people have seen or heard about stopped the very day they meet.All of us like the excitment of blind dating it is like openning a christmas present, waiting to be surprised,but unlike a chrismas present ,we most times get shocked.

Mine was a disaster,i met this girl through her sister a couple of years back,her sister was my friend in Abuja and she is pretty,she was into me,but i really was not in moods for flings, so i kept a low profile with her. Then something led to another and i got talking to her sister,and then asked my friend  how her sister looks,she told me she was prettier. So i  shifted attention to the sister,we talked on the phone like mad, then i had to go to Abuja for one reason. This chick kept on calling me from the Airport before i departed and her call was the first i recieved when the plane grounded.

In short we met....................and we never spoke again.I know i was dissapointed,but was she? i will never find out cos i did not want to.
I figured out that day: we all want what is out of our reach,i mean there are zillions of girls and guys we see everyday but most of us prefer to fall in love with those we dont see, we like surprises,we like suspense we like to wonder in exictment what the future holds, yet we want to peep a little into the future to ensure all is well.

All this flashed back into my head in the middle of the night ,while my cous was laughing his heart out on the phone,well his might be one of the exceptions,but to me i think it is a disaster waiting to happen.

Not all blind dates end in a misery anyway,but it is a mystery how much poeple love blind dates,check facebook and all social webs,people just want to hang out with people  they dont have a single clue about,leaving the very good friends behind.

Now my cous will see the girl in about a forth night,i will give you guys the disaster report. Really hope it has a happy ending!

THE ZOO

Our life is so much in order.
Hiding feelings from one another.
Too careful of each other.
our world is like a Zoo.

We have lost our basic instinct.
Taking our existence into extinct.
And we think that makes us distinct.
Our world is like a Zoo.

I want to return to the wild.
Where i wont take life mild.
Into the free air i would glide.
Am getting out of the Zoo.

I dont want to remain the same.
I dont want to be tame.
I will burn my shackles in flames.
Am getting out of the Zoo.

TRULY,Life is not easy!

Early this morning,i was on bed trying to overcome the very first difficulty of everyday life, waking up! I had so much for the day,first was to catch a 7:30am flight from lagos to port-harcourt which if i miss will have a crushing Domino effect on my day,infact on my week.
I already had a painstaking day just the day before,trying to get a solar panel and some cables in Alaba international market.
Also the day before yesterday,i had another Emotional blow from the one thats dear to me......Also the day before the day  before yesterday, i was at a must attend wedding in Oshogbo and i had to leave oshogbo for lagos in a crazy hold up in Ibadan,  because i must see the one thats dear to me, and the day before this i had to travel 9 hours on the road from port harcourt to oshogbo.....the day before this also......................i can go on without end....but wait lets return to Early this morning!

Yes Early this morning,trying to wake up brought so much thought into me,i mean truly,life is not easy! but who cares,life can only be easy if one want to lounge around like a Lion caged with two lionness in the Zoo, where one can get free food,booze and accomodation but ofcourse you would get stared at like a zoo lion, people paying to stare at you.

Problem is,i dont think the lion likes the zoo idea,i can just imagine what the lion thinks "Life is not easy" ofcourse he thinks life is not easy,even the lion in the jungle chasing zebras still thinks life is not easy....so when will life be easy?

Now my point of view, life is not easy, so what! "Know your limit, then exceed it" thats one of my favourite quotes,now that we all know life is not easy,what do we do? Yes work harder and pray, not knowing it then start to whine about it, that there is Negativity!
 The most difficult part of life is waking up,if you get out of bed,then you have what it takes to live life.
Hardwork leads to success.knowing that life is not easy solves half the problem.Most of us know that SAT exam is not easy,then we prepare harder for it,that is the kind of knowing that am talking about,not knowing and getting all negative about it.
If one would rate life's difficulty on a scale of 1 - 10, i would say 15!
Am not here to tell you that life is not easy, am here to challenge you about what you will do with this uneasy life.
Thank God Adam eat "an apple" as people said,what if he eat watermelon or pawpaw,then life might be more difficult,the bigger the friut the bigger the punishment (my assumption).

So as i go around merging the differnt colors of my life together,i intend painting colorfully the beautiful rainbow of my life with  Prayer and hardwork.

Prison without walls

Living in a cell
i heard the catholic bell
confession time, who will i tell?
for all believed,i fell.

I always yell
but that did not sell
for am in a big well
and no one can compel.

Is like am on a spell
that wants to take me to hell
i tried to chase it from where i dwell
in this, i did not excel.

Shock has taken me off my heel
shocks more than the electric eel
am the only one who knows how it feels
to everyone else am going round the reel!

Repeating The Sins of Our FATHERS!

Someone said "the generation of our present fathers have committed so much mistakes that all we can just do is forgive them". I second that statement, because  looking back i see a lot of polygamist,drunks, and broke fathers with broken homes. I mean they were so middle class minded and self-fish that it was in that generation we had a lot of corrupt leaders that led this country to the state it is presently.
Nearly half of all the fathers in that generation had married twice or have a concubine somewhere,making step- brothers,step-sisters,step-mothers a norm.
Not all of them were that bad,( there are loads of sweet,loving and caring fathers among our fathers) but probe deeply and you would find out that most of your friends fall in this category.Most of us carry this shame about, but it was not our fault,as a matter of fact it is there shame,never ours!

The major challenge with our generation is that we think we are smarter than the generation of our fathers,and we think we can never be as broke and broken like they are.Imagine a dude that came from a polygamous home with broke parents, already triple dating,and he is so sure he wont end up like his dad because he is smarter and plays his game safer...hmmm....i bet his father thought that too! Lets not talk about our own corruption! its worse.

It is so easy to make accusations at somebody when you aint in their shoes,it looks easy from the outside and we can say "how can a man be this Broke!" "How can a father drink all his money away!" "i cant be that foolish".......
The only person capable of rebuking anyone,is someone who has gone through the same thing and acted wisely,someone who succeeded where others fell.

A story was told of a woman who always complained of how dirty the cloths on the laundry line of her neighbours look, then one day she said "wow her cloths look cleaner today,she must have changed her detergent" then her husband replied "no i woke up early this morning and i cleaned our window". That is exactly what we in this generation are doing, still looking through the dirty window, blaming others while what we should do is clean up our view.

My Name is BARNABAS!

I hate to admit this, i mean i could have been given names like John,Peter,Paul,Joshua even Titus is not bad, instead i was given a name close to the thief crucified with christ.
The name itself is not as bad as it sound,but when friends call me all sorts like Barny,Barna B, and worse of all Barnaa! That is bad!

Imagine what my folks were thinking, when they chose to call me that name of all the names in the Bible, some shallow bible scholar still mistake the name for Barabas,are you guilty? I mean Barnabas is not even a real name it was a nickname to the guy 'joseph of cyprus' in the bible,i bet you didnt know that!(Acts 4:36-37)
I have a little encouragement in the meaning of the name, maybe that was the whole idea, as in, to be encouraged by the meaning,cos the name actually means "son of encouragement" see my point? Maybe i should just take encouragement in the "son of encouragement".

I have being hiding behind Tobi for so long that i tried eliminating Barnabas off the books,but it never worked, the name just keeps coming back to me.I put it last amongs my name 'Abimbola Tobi Barnabas' imagine my dissapointment when all my ATM cards carry 'Barnabas Abimbola' or 'Abimbola Barnabas' i mean where is Tobi?
Worst is,there no celebrity bearing that name that i can hide behind,no friend, every one seem to have abandoned the name for only me, maybe that was the idea, they wanted to give me a special name,but why not Nebuchadnezzar?

Looking at it from a different angle,the name is kind of nice. i mean if friends can just call me Babs or something much creme, and the Barnabas himself in the Bible was a sweet person. I mean the guy was sweet! little wonder he earned that nickname.
Now am proud of the guy and the name,I am a son of encouragement,and the first person to be encouraged is Me. I have encouraged myself that the name is special and i have today rechristened myself, and i give encouragement to all who feel their names are not cool. Seriously your name cant be that bad,just accept it!

Your name is special,no matter how bad you think it sounds or how commonized the name is, be it native or biblical or islamic!
My name is Barnabas, and am here to encourage YOU!

EVERYTHING I KNOW I LEARNT AS A KID

When i was a child ,i talked like a child,thought like a child and acted like a child,now that am grown i just remenber my childhood.
I learnt everything i know now in kindergerteen,as i grow up the only thing i do is just remenber them. (Although exceptions like learning about sex and marriage do not count)
Love your neighbours, share your food, hold hands when your cross the road, pray every morning, pray before you eat ,never beat a lady, wash your hands before you eat ,wash your hands after using the toilet, etc.
Sounds familiar? In a simple world where number crunching and program writing is not the order of the day, the only schooling we need is kindergerteen.

Most of us now need to be reminded of the basic things of life,sometimes we even pay to be thought these things,things we were thought in kindergerteen.
Still dont understand me? Ok! take this example:
Some people have to be jailed to be reminded of; not steal,not beating a lady,loving their neighbours,not being jealous, etc
A special case is that of religion,i learnt the basic things about God in sunday school as a kid,i learnt that God is Merciful,kind,love,great,can do all things,faithful.....but the problem is that i keep forgetting this things,i need to be reminded every sunday in church, a little challenge and i forget that God is all sufficient then i try to solve things myself.

I learnt that hardwork and prayer leads to success as a kid,i learnt that doing things right gives fulfilment and joy,i learnt that honesty is profitable nomatter what you loss by telling the truth....but now i just want to be successful forgetting about hardwork,i just want things done regardless of how,in short have forgotten every thing i learnt has a kid.

I forget that life is simple and beautiful,that the beauty of life lies in natural highs like rainbows,beaches,sand,rain,love and laughter.
I forget the taste of tears,rain and mucus.salty? i forget that humility is not stupidity, that friends most times piss one off, that it is not about who wins but who you share the victory with.

There are so much things that i have forgotten,i would make a huge list recounting them,but has i paint the remaining colours of my life into a rainbow,i plan to paint a huge part of my childhood beautifully into it and carry it along as i paint my rainbows!

BEFORE YOU JUDGE ME, READ THIS!

"The only people you think are people are those who act or think like you,but if you follow the footsteps of a stranger ,you will learn things you never knew you never knew".
We are so quick to jugde,because we dont understand things does not mean we should not accept them,many people dont even understand how electricity works, yet they use it everyday.
The so called first impression that comes to our mind when we see someone whose ideas,dress-sense,social charateristics and even religion differ from ours is apalling. By default we repel people whose ideas and looks differ from ours.

Just before you  excempt yourself from this accussations;what was your expression/impression when you saw an Alfa (muslim scholar) with his long untidy beard, a white garment church worshipper,a girl putting on trousers,a guy plaiting his hair or putting on ear-rings,people with pierced nose,tongue and body, tatoos,even the guy putting on skinny jeans etc. Whats ever wrong with being differnt?(although this have exceptions, extremes like molesting children or killing do not count)

I cant just understand that guy called "Derenle" his style,his hair-do and all his weird stuff,but that does not mean i should not accept him,infact i wish i shouldnt have to accept him, but not understanding him is not a right license for me to critisize him.

If am telling a lie and i shout louder,publicise more and am more heard than the guy saying the truth,does that make my lie the truth?Because am able to sell my lie so well does not still make it true. What am saying in essence is; no matter how wildly accepted a lie is,it is still a lie, so is the case when more ladies put on trousers and some dont, does it make the majority right and the minority wrong?(i dont have problem with ladies puttting on trousers, infact i love it)

Just before you have that quick first impression, wait! try to understand,give them a benefit of doubt,it may be due to some cultural reason,upbringing,religion,personal protection,comfort etc. Most people have loads of reasons acting the way they do,just hear them out first and if you cant, dnt jugde them so fast!
If a guy loves poetry and novel instead of the regular playstation and soccer,does that make him odd?(well i love all),i think he is just different!
Imagine what the world would be like if everybody wants,thinks,wears,votes,loves exactly the same thing,just imagine!

Thats why we all love the Rainbow! Diverse colors perfectly matched together. Its beauty lies in its difference. Accept people different from you,you are probably as weird to them as they are to you.