Resonance

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  • Awkward Silence vs Comfortable Silence

    It’s amazing how silence makes people feel so uncomfortable. They will make all sorts of funny noises or talk about the weirdest things just to avoid it.

    Ever had a meaningful conversation and felt so fulfilled? That’s because conversations are associated with feelings of belonging, self-esteem and social validation. There are random pauses in every conversation that usually leads to a follow-up conversation on another subject. However, these random pauses can lead to awkward silence.

    The longer the pause, the more anxious we feel. In fact, studies relate awkward silence to feelings of rejection and negative emotions. It takes 4 seconds for an awkward silence to happen. 4 seconds is all it takes to feel rejected, anxious and less assured. But this doesn’t have to be your story.

    We’ve all experienced awkward silence in a conversation before, haven’t we? We can even anticipate it sometimes. There’s that sudden silence in the conversation and one feels pressured to speak but is unsure of what to say next. Sometimes we even repeat our last statement several times just to avoid that 4-second silence.

    There is a difference between being silent and being quiet. Silence is not saying anything when you have to say something. Quietness is only saying something when you have something to say.

    Daniel Good

    The silent treatment can damage the capacity to communicate and diminish feelings of intimacy. The quietness, on the other hand, is a necessary natural and unintentional occurrence that breaks the barrier of trying hard to be something you are not just to feel comfortable around someone else.

    Learning to be comfortable in silence is an art. Believe it or not, there’s more communication and connection in silence than in conversation. Sometimes conversation even ruins the moment. The quieter you become, the more you can feel the embrace.

    You can enjoy each other’s company without saying a word; those moments when we aren’t pressured to fill the void with unnecessary chatter are when we bond the most. It’s a sign that you’re very comfortable around the person. In a relationship, remember to talk because you want to, not because you have to.

    I love you ❤️

  • Parenthood 202: How Fathers Make a Difference in our Lives

    This is not the most fatherless generation in history. Many generations lost millions of men on the battlefield. Fathers went to war and never returned. Some who returned were better off dead; fatally wounded and had a lot of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to deal with. Some were deaf from the recurring sound of bombs. Others were too weak to recover from taking too many bullets. There have been many fatherless generations.

    This generation is the most fatherless generation that didn’t lose its fathers to war. In the USA alone, 19.7 million children – which is about 1 of out every 4 children – live without a father in their home. About one-third of Black Americans grow up without a Dad in their home. It’s a fact even from the experiential level, that there is a “father factor” in nearly all social vices.

    With the rise in extreme feminism, many women are gradually leaning toward having no man in their lives. Women are also complaining about double parenting, where there is a father figure in the house but he’s virtually useless and the woman takes double responsibility for running the home. The truth of the matter is, women have an inner craving in them for a male figure in their lives. Someone to protect them, at the very least; someone to direct them; someone to lead them. A girl’s bond with her father greatly affects her relationships with other men.

    Though some men may have failed women in a lot of ways, women must realize it’s only a ripple effect from men not having a father figure in their lives. Lecrae Moore said it better in his song, Just Like You;

    I got this emptiness inside that got me fighting for approval because I missed out on my daddy saying, “way to go”,

    Ain’t get that verbal affirmation or know how to treat a woman, know how to fix an engine,
    To keep the car running

    So now I’m looking at the media and following what they feed me,

    Lecrae Moore – Just Like You

    Fathers -lessness: A Generational Curse

    Our relationship with our earthly father also affects our relationship with our Heavenly Father. In 2001, Jennifer Hamer did research that showed that many African-American youths did not know how to approach their father when in his presence. Thus, if your father is more like a boss, you’re more likely to view God as a boss. Likewise, your relationship with God will likely be a very personal one if he’s a close friend.

    Even if there’s further research to prove that single parenting is equally as good as having two parents around, single parenting is not something to wish for. Single mothers are one of the poorest populations, many of them vulnerable to homelessness. In the United States, nearly half (45%) of single mothers and their children live below the poverty line. It’s not as easy as rich single mothers may make it look. The struggles that single parents face are greater than those in two-parent households.

    Moreover, it’s a generational curse. Men with absent fathers are more likely to become absent fathers themselves. Women with absent fathers are more likely to have children with absent fathers. Further research has shown that growing up without a father can permanently affect your brain. With society on the brink of collapse, the need for a father – not a perfect one, but one who will be there – is more important now than ever. Society will only flourish if matriarchy takes its place by patriarchy, not when the former overthrows the latter. Either of them will fail without the other.

    Be grateful to have a father and father figures in your life. They represented the Father and the fatherhood of God in your life. The enemy’s plan to eliminate fathers from society worked in America, and we all saw the dire effects associated with the rise of LGBT, abortion, gender-affirming surgeries and the lack of common sense. We shouldn’t sit down for this to be replicated in our society. We must honour our fathers, cherish them, celebrate them, remember them, and raise many more sons into fathers.

  • Parenting 101: 7 Things About Parenthood You Haven’t Noticed

    If you’ve never been a parent before, you think it’s easy to be a parent. Kids are the most expensive entities in the world. The most troublesome, stubbornest little cute pieces of burdens, actually. Yet, parenting is the most rewarding work in the world. No salary, no monetary gain (in fact, the most costly financial decision anyone could make), no guarantee and yet it is what makes all the difference in the world. Here are 7 things about parenthood you haven’t really noticed, even as a parent.

    1. It is the ultimate sacrifice

    There’s nothing in this world that’s going to bring you more joy than bringing someone into this world and watching them grow to become great. This is more than being the one who gave out the money to a brother who won the lottery or the one who supported a friend till they made it to the top. This is pouring out your life and soul and resources into another life. Parenting is the ultimate sacrifice, a different feel of love, and until you’re a parent it will never make sense.

    2. It requires your best life

    If you’re going to be a parent, it’s going to take the most and best part of your life. It will take not less than half of your entire life on average. Therefore, if you fail as a parent, you should know that it’s going to be the biggest regret of your life. This is not to scare you but to give you a certain kind of perspective. A big aspect of your purpose in life is directly tied to parenthood.

    3. It should determine your spouse

    If you’ve been picturing a “happy ever after” with the love of your life, well, don’t forget the kids. In fact, if anyone asked for my opinion concerning who to marry, I’d say choose someone who’d help you raise a happy home. It will be about the two of you for a few years. The rest of the years is mainly about the kids. Many rich successful people at the end of the road usually say that they wished they had spent more time with their family.

    4. It’s a lot more complex than you think

    Many say to themselves, “I’m awesome. I came out just fine. I’m going to raise my kids just like how I was raised. Except that I’m not gonna do these 5 mistakes my parents did and then my kids are gonna come out much better than I did”. No, it doesn’t work like that. It’s like saying you’ve been watching videos on heart surgery and you were smart enough to notice about 5 mistakes the surgeon did. Therefore, you can perform heart surgery. It just doesn’t work that way. In fact, parenting is much more complex than heart surgery. There is no fixed way of going about things. That’s the nature of relationships.

    5. Knowledge cannot be compared with experience

    Though you’ve been around and have been helping your parents in their parenting, you probably didn’t notice how they really make it work. You may think you can dance when you’re watching a dancing tutorial till it’s actually time to dance. That’s what I want you to understand. It only looks easy because they did over and over, but doing it over and over is the hard part. A lot of trial and error has gone into it. Parenting ain’t easy. If you think life is hard, try being responsible for another life.

    6. There is no perfect parent

    So appreciate your parents now that they are alive and be proud of them. Don’t hold that “entitlement attitude”; you’re-my-parent-so-you’re-supposed-to, I-didn’t-ask-you-to-give-birth-to-me bullshit. Parenting is not like running a business or having administrative duties, it’s a lot more complex than that so don’t make it too hard for them. They are doing their very best. Don’t wait till it’s your turn to be a parent to really realize this. Of course, they are not always right. So are you. Not always being right is completely normal. No need to make a big deal out of it and use it against them.

    7. It has a ripple effect

    As human beings, we usually replicate what we have been exposed to. Your parents are raising you in many ways like how their parents raised them. Funny enough, you are going to raise your kids surprisingly in many little ways like how you were raised. We don’t know any better. I’m not talking about what we know. I’m talking about what we’ve experienced. So if you want to raise your kids in a much more excellent way, be intentional about it and start now.

    It’s a good person that becomes a good parent. It starts by being a good child. So I edge you to break any generational curses and pass on the generational blessings. If you want to be appreciated as a parent, appreciate your parents. Let them know they have done well.

    I love you ❤️

  • I Don’t Care: Breaking Free from the Apathy & Indifference

    I Don’t Care: Breaking Free from the Apathy & Indifference

    Ever met or been that person who is always like, “As for me, I don’t care. I don’t feel anything.” And we admired such people because they looked to us like strength. The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart. The Presence of God is known and it is also felt. Knowing God in our minds is boring and repressive. Having mental knowledge of God without ever experiencing Him is basically a religion. Joy, Peace, Love, Gratitude, Responsibility, Humility etc are expressions. Whatever we express is emotionally relevant. This means that anytime we try to act all cool and don’t really care who even died in our family, it’s because we have squirmed into ourselves.

    I have been a victim of “I don’t care”. Whenever I live constantly like that, I feel like I am a wall upon which all emotions around me are being thrown. I don’t feel like a person. I feel like an object in that situation. So I become invisible by becoming silent and I hide in plain sight. I don’t let people in. I am in a state of avoidance; being physically not present. So I go away so there’s nothing to relate to anymore. I hold strong boundaries or walls, keeping my feelings contained or even suppressed. And as long as I took this path of emotionlessness, I barely experienced God for myself. I interpret everything on a logical level. Even prophetic and worship meetings were full of my mind telling me how pretentious what was happening was.

    There are so many cover-up emotions today. This is where we can’t tolerate one emotion so we cover it up by feeling something else, usually something more acceptable. We can’t feel rage, so we feel frustration. I can’t tolerate intense betrayal, so I feel hurt instead. We can’t allow ourselves to feel unquenchable grief, so we feel sadness instead. I can’t even express or identify what we are feeling, so I stay silent. Because we do not know how to define what we are feeling or expressing, we would defend, hide, avoid, or escape it. But underneath these “defences” are often feelings of vulnerability. We too often identify a vulnerability with weakness, shame or being too emotional, in an attempt to cover a raw aspect of ourselves.

    No one was born a stoic. All creations are emotional creatures, birds and dogs alike. Because emotions do not come from our bodies though they do have a direct link with them; emotions are what makes us persons connected to the orchestrations of the universe as a whole.

    The truth is, once you close your heart to hurt, you also close yourself to love. Also, closing your heart will never stop you from feeling the negative emotions that come with life. It will rather stop you from fully expressing and benefitting from good emotions. There is hope in the shadows, there is peace in the storm, there is patience in the pain, and there is joy in the sorrow. Open up your heart. The Holy Spirit wants you to enjoy His fruits regardless of the circumstances.


    If you know for yourself that you’re in this “I don’t care anymore” state or you’re heading towards that in any important area of your life, I want you to put your hand on your heart and pray this prayer;
    Heart, you have permission to be wide open towards the LORD, to be fully present, to fully feel, to be fully affected. Heart, you have permission to know that He is emotional about you. You have permission to know that you don’t need to shut down. You don’t need to lock up. Lord, any place where I have stopped feeling because of pain, because of vows that I’ve made, I give you permission to open my heart back to you. I want to have a heart that is fully after yours. In Jesus’ Name, I pray, Amen.

    I love you ♥

  • What Do You Resonate With?

    If you’ve lived long enough, you’d realize you could be getting the same messages along a certain line for a period of time. Some even say it’s the universe sending them that message over and over. You’d hear a particular word echo or even a certain conclusion is drawn in different conservations with different people. You could resonate with discipline, balance, mindset, personality, or working smart.

    Some words or ideas may resonate with us for days, weeks, months or years, even a lifetime. We may be inclined towards a certain philosophy, school of thought, system, concept, mindset or attitude. Not just us, a generation, a city, a building, an architecture, culture, even animals may be related to a certain form of resonance. It’s an endless list.

    LENS

    There’s a difference between what it is and how we see it. How we see things is based on our lens. If you’ve noticed, no matter what the conversation is about, people tune it to what they resonate with. People who resonate with discipline think everything is about discipline. People who incline to love think it will come down to love. Those who resonate with balance see the balance in everything.

    Others who resonate with mindset think the mindset is everything. Those who also resonate with wisdom believe it all goes back to wisdom. If you hang around people who resonate with hard work, you’d soon believe in it and work with it. That’s why it’s necessary to find what works for you because everything works but it just may not be for you.

    INFLUENCE

    For some people, what they resonate with is in their everyday vocabulary. Stick around for a while and you’d hear them use it often. For others, it’s simply embedded in their attitude. Walk with them for a while and you’d be influenced. We all individually have the potential to be anything. What we don’t have the potential to be is everything at the same time.

    Thus, different people bring out different sides of us. Ever worked with a consistent person before? You’ll always be on your toes. How about one who always gives new excuses? You’d relax. If one group thinks you’re funny, your funny side comes out when you’re around them. This is why the people you surround yourself with matters.

    NATURE & NURTURE

    Truth is, we all don’t resonate with just one thing. One person can resonate with different seemingly contradictory ideologies. Nonetheless, we have something we’ll completely resonate with for a lifetime. This is usually the virtues that go with our personality. Introverts obviously resonate with solitude, the choleric believes in being straightforward, and so on. It’s nature.

    However, there are others we pick up along the way that we come to resonate with it so much that no matter our environment, it still wouldn’t rob off. It’s nurture that becomes nature. This is usually the values that come with our upbringing.

    PERSPECTIVE

    There are good and bad sides to anything we resonate with. You call it laziness but it may be smartness. Call it consistent but it may be conservative. You call it hectic but it may be hard work. You call it slow but it may be meticulous. Call it patience but it may be indecisiveness. It all depends on the situation.

    A particular generation may hype hard work, another will hype laziness, especially this generation. It says lazy people find easy ways of doing things. So make sure what you resonate with is consistent with the world’s current.

    Since everything works as long as you keep resonating with it, it’s better that you simply hype what you resonate without defaming any other. For instance, being practical doesn’t mean being theoretical is wrong. Practicality only makes us experts in specific things but theory makes us understand the principles that can applied in several ingenious ways.

    Leonardo Da Vinci once said, “He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast”.

    So find what you resonate with, be intentional about it, and let it be synonymous to your name in your environment. Morgina Arku said it better; you can resonate with a lot of things but muster a few.

    I love you ❤️

  • New Year, Old Me : A Resonance Poetry

    It’s a new year but this time, I have no point to prove.

    I don’t need to change who I am to please you.

    Why do I want a new me when I always knew…

    …that this version of me will always improve.

    You are under no obligation to be who you were, yes!

    But this time, I’m not going to beat myself up and stress

    trying to make Resolutions, only to regret

    trying to be a good person only to impress

    So instead of trying, I will simply be

    And rather become the best version of me

    In what I say, do, hear and see

    Instead of living one year at a time

    I choose to live one day at a time

    Calm myself in the storm because everything will be fine

    and stay motivated by choosing to be kind

    After all, what matters the most in life?

    Isn’t it self-improving, having one another and overcoming strife?

    So new year, old me because the old me is the real me

    …and the “new year, new me” is what I pretend to be

  • 7 Unusual Lessons from the Christmas Story

    We have heard the Christmas story over and over. This time round, I read between the lines to cherry-pick for you applicable everyday wisdom. Hope you enjoy it!

    When King Herod heard about this, he was worried, and so was everyone else in Jerusalem.

    Matthew 2:3 CEV

    LESSON 1: Sometimes someone’s good news is bad news to us because we don’t clearly recognise the benefit it is to us.

    Instead of seeing a blessing of a brethen, we rather see an uncalled-for competition. This is why Cain killed Abel. This is why Esau hated Jacob. See, when you see that God has blessed your neighbour today, it shouldn’t call for jealousy. It’s a sign that your open door season is coming soon. It’s a time to celebrate the victory with your neighbour because you even indirectly benefit from that blessing.


    When the men went into the house and saw the child with Mary, his mother, they knelt down and worshiped him. They took out their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh and gave them to him.

    Matthew 2:11 CEV



    LESSON 2: Have an attitude of gratitude.



    The full benefit of a blessing goes to people who receive it with complete thanksgiving. These wise men presented their best gifts. As was fitting, you can’t go into the presence of a King without giving gifts. Not that the King requires it but you in your own wisdom know that it is befitting for a King. I’ve revealed to you why we are trained to thank God first when we enter His presence. Psalm 100:4 says so.

    LESSON 3: People from afar are far more likely to see your star than the people close to you.



    Coming from afar, the Christmas looks magical. Yet those close see animal poop, an untidy place and smell something pungent. See, when you’re too close you are more likely to see mistakes. Take a step back and appreciate the people in your life. Take a step back and even appreciate the person you have become.

    But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

    Luke 2:19 NIV



    LESSON 4: Your heart is a treasure storage



    It takes some time for a thought in your conscious mind to sink into your subconscious mind. It would need to be repeated frequently, involve as many senses as possible and be re-imagined in several dimensions. In other words, the only things stored in your heart are things you treasure. Once you treasure something, you pay too much attention to it. So when God examines our hearts, He clearly sees what we treasure.



    LESSON 5: Selah


    Selah is written across the Psalms. It means to meditate, to ponder, to treasure in your heart. It is the process between head knowledge and the kind of knowledge that changes your life forever. Have you met someone so full of God’s Word? It is because they make time to Selah. The Word of God cannot simply come to life to you if you spend some few minutes every once in a while in the Word. You will need to Selah before the Word can resonate with you.

    The angel said, “Get up and take the child and his mother back to Israel. The people who wanted to kill him are now dead.”

    Matthew 2:20 CEV

    LESSON 6: “Get Up – because you can – for I have done what you can’t”



    By now, you know there are certain things God will never do for you. Sometimes instead of God preventing the calamity, He will rather prompt you to pray to Him for Him to prevent the calamity. God is God, and He will always do what man cannot do. So don’t expect Him to do what man can do. If He does what men do, men will always take the credit. So He does the impossible because only He can. He begins where man’s ability end.

    All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished,

    Luke 2:18 NLT

    LESSON 7: Your story sounds “normal” till you tell it to someone else



    People will see you differently once they get to hear your story. Their senses widen, their respect enlarges and their idea of you broadens. A story leaves a longlasting impression than anything we’ll ever hear or listen to. Your “work in progress” story can change someone’s life forever.

    After all, what is Christmas? It’s a story of the birth of a Saviour. It’s a story of the Son of God becoming the Son of Man so that the sons of mens can become sons of God. It is the story of Emmanuel, God living among mere mortals with human feelings, emotions, thoughts and instincts.

  • The Bride, the Reason & the Beauty of Marriage

    The Bride, the Reason & the Beauty of Marriage

    Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave his life for it.
    Ephesians 5:25 GNB

    Once upon a time, there lived three persons. They were one in Love, Truth and Light yet Holy (Hebrew rendition: set apart, unique) in their distinct ways. They were one in motives and in ways, in thought and in function.

    One day, Abba (Greek rendition: Father) decided to create a bride for His Son. So he created Adam (Hebrew rendition: man). But He said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will for Him a suitable helper.” Trinity wanted man to understand love in their own unique way too so that their mystical union with Christ as their Bridegroom would not be so new a concept to them. Yet still, this union blows our minds of every imagination.

    Jesus is the only Human Being in the Trinity. He was born a man, lived as a man, died as a man and ascended as a man. The tomb is still empty. Now He is seated on the Right-Hand Side of God as a man. He is the Son of God and the Son of Man. The GodMan. He is the only way we as humans are intertwined with the Divine.

    It is by looking unto Him that we understand how God can dwell in man and man in God. He is the Temple of God and so are we. He is the Righteousness of God and so are we. He is the visible image of God (Col 1:15) and so we are. “As He is, so are we in this world”.

    “Just as a man left his father and mother to be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Gen 2:24), Jesus did same (Phil 2:6-7) and came to dwell among us (John 1:14); “and His Name shall be called Emmanuel. The GodMan has set up His dwelling place among men. The GodMan came to establish His Kingdom, not around us but within us.
    For
    No one will say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’; because the Kingdom of God is within you.”
    Luke 17:21 GNB

    And now, Christ is married to us all. And He lavishes His Love on us. Not like a Master loving a servant, but as a Husband loving a Wife. We are God’s Partner, intertwined with Him from the beginning of time.

    He loves you ❤

  • Being Alone vs Being Lonely II

    Being Alone vs Being Lonely II

    The continuation of a conversation between Emmanuel Bugyei and I.

    Bugyei: But the thing; everyone is so wrapped up in their existence so they can’t see when someone desperately wants them and their company. Statuses also divide us even further; another person’s looks, friends, walk, talk it all differentiates us.

    Me: Yeah!

    People of class and stature have an overdose of attention. But sometimes they feel very lonely because they feel people care about them because of what they have and what they put up. Loneliness is only cured when we’re accepted for who we are freely.

    Bugyei: They also reject those who see them for who they truly are. So can there really be any cure?

    Me: The need for love is just like that for sleep or food. Abraham Maslow called it a social need and placed in the middle of the pyramid. It actually needs to be satisfied daily

    Bugyei: What about self-love, is that not enough?

    Me: It is only self-love that sustains a person who is alone from being Lonely. However, there is a journey towards it. It’s like kids. They must be nurtured until they can nurture on their own. Unfortunately, not everyone reaches maturity but everyone starts off as a child. At the highest maturity and enlightenment, we don’t need Love because we are Love. We are all one with God, the source of Love.

    Bugyei: And for those who are not Christian?.

    Me: We all go through a similar journey on this one, regardless of our beliefs and labels. The danger, however, is when we slash hard on people so desperate for another’s affection. We are called to love, not to shame people into loving themselves. People eventually learn to love themselves when they’ve received so much love. A child once asked, “can I be a good father if I’ve never been loved?”

    Bugyei: And what was the answer?

    Me: He wasn’t answered. It brought tears in the eyes of the adults around. His father was a drunkard who always abused his mom. He was taken away from him and sent to a foster home, where he asked this question to a preacher preaching about God’s love.

    I hope you enjoyed this insightful conversation. Loneliness is as bad for you as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, as dangerous as obesity, and increases the likelihood of an early death by 26%.

    Let’s kill loneliness before it kills us. I hope this conversation compels you to love fully and freely; to accept people for who they are; to love with a purpose and without condition. Remember, where there is purpose and acceptance, loneliness suffocates.

    I love you ❤️

  • Being Alone vs Being Lonely

    Being Alone vs Being Lonely

    A conversation between Emmanuel Bugyei and I.

    Me: Turns out there’s an epidemic of loneliness in the 21st century, ironically

    Bugyei: But is it common with young adults?

    Me: Yhup! Most people can only identify about 6 emotions so the rest go unnoticed. Truth is, there’s not a single moment that we’re not experiencing one emotion or another.

    That means people sometimes attribute sadness, grief, apathy, hunger, destitution and many others to loneliness when it isn’t always the case or vice versa.

    Bugyei: So what does it mean to be lonely?

    Me: It’s a feeling of void, emptiness, isolation. What sets loneliness apart is that it stems from lost or unformed relationships, basically human interaction.

    We’re emotional beings who need intimacy, love and attention. When we’re underfed on these, we begin to feel lonely.

    Bugyei: So the problem is not with the lonely person (the victim) but the object of his need.

    Me: Exactly! That’s the underlying problem of the problem. Little acts of rejection hits us hard in the chest, and sometimes we don’t notice our own selves trying so hard to belong.

    That’s why it’s good to show little acts of kindness to people. They NEED it, even if they don’t know that they need it. It’s a necessity good.

    Bugyei: Well, a simple hello can help heal the heart.

    Me: Sometimes a sincere word of kindness too does it.

    I love you ❤️

    …to be continued

  • Being Your True Self & Relating Well with Others

    Being Your True Self & Relating Well with Others

    We all make mistakes. The beauty of being human is in our flaws and frailty revealing the handiwork and masterpiece of our Creator. It is better to make mistakes than to fake perfection. Faking perfection means living for their acceptance. If we live for their acceptance, we’ll die from their rejection. So just be you, and allow others to be their higher self by living your higher self.

    Defining how others should cope with you should be a boundary of authenticity rather than a limitation of freedom. Don’t live to please anyone. On the other hand, don’t live to intentionally displease someone. Both are in different directions but still emanates an inauthentic lifestyle lived in reaction to someone else.

    Sometimes people try to expose what’s wrong with you, because they can’t appreciate what’s right about you.

    Truth is, we can never like everything about someone. There will always be something that someone does or how the person lives life that we would dislike. If we can’t think of anything of that sort concerning someone in particular, then it means we have overlooked their flaws and not that they have no flaws.

    Funny enough, we don’t even like everything about our ownselves. We can sometimes meet someone and not like how they live their life, and we don’t even know them lmao. Bottom line: you cannot correct every opinion people have about you. Free yourself from the need to do so. Everyone has the right to think whatever they want about anything. Don’t waste your energy.

    If someone isn’t what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should live their lives, but none about his or her own.

    We can’t be going round telling everyone about the things they do that we don’t like and what we don’t like about them. On the other hand, we shouldn’t be Mr Nice or Mrs Nice who is always okay with everything and allows everyone to tread over them. It’s a world of balance, not of perfection. Confront and correct the things something can be done about and accept the things you can’t change.

    There is a difference between a personality and an attitude. Laziness is not a personality trait; it’s an attitude. Being lazy cannot therefore be someone’s personality, and most importantly, something can be done about it.

    Attitude > Behaviour (based on personality traits) > Character

    If we can’t accept someone’s personality trait and we want them to change to fit into our own biased definition of how to live life, then we are stabbing our ownselves in the back. Usually, that means we are projecting ourselves on the person and comparing their flaws to our strengths. Surely, there are some others who hate us for being ourselves but who cares? At the end of the day, it is the opinions of the people who matter the most to us that will matter the most to us.

    This is the everlasting truth: if we are truly living our higher, true and authentic self, we would allow others to be themselves also. If we are always wanting others to change and fit into our own little boxes, it’s a sign that we are living inside the box ourselves. How we see others says more about us than about others. Any free man would wish everyone was free so they could experience the kind of freedom he is experiencing. If a free man wishes that everyone else should be made captive and he only free, it’s a sign that his mind is captive.

    Be who you are and say how you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.

    Know who you are; your preferences, your style, your interests, your innate abilities; free from the impurities of this world, free from other people’s assumptions, free from your own misconceptions, free from the deep lies you choose to believe about yourself. For anyone who truly knows himself/herself is not perturbed with what others may misconceive about him/her.

    So now the most ideal question is, who am I? Follow this link to understand more about who you are.

    I love you ❤

  • Redefining Yourself in the Next Phase of your Life

    We are an amalgamation of every phase of life we have ever been in; the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful. Every phase came together to produce the masterpiece you are, including the phases you hate so much and wished you never experienced. However, there are some people in some situations who wish they never went through a particular phase in their lives. If you are in such a situation, this write-up is for you.

    Change is the only constant in life. These changes come in phases. Some girls grow up being teased for being ugly till they hit puberty. Now their haters are silenced. Others are bullied in high school but end up as a millionaire 10 years later. The tables turn. Seasons change. Phases come and go. In fact, a new phase is the closest thing to a reset button life offers us.

    Friends; “Friendly” Reminders of Who We Used to Be

    Friends you make in each phase are still stuck with the memories of you in that phase. Thus, although you may have changed and have been redefined, the version of you they still know is your past phase where you were very close to them. That’s how come you can be the president of a nation but your friends from high school still call you by your nickname. Since we are an amalgamation of every phase we have been in, they will still see in us a side of us they can still relate to. People don’t change much although we go through drastic changes. When I wrote Who Am I?, I explained that some core aspects of ourselves will barely change throughout our lifetime.

    There are people who became friends with you simply because they met you several times a week. They may be workers near our vicinity or even a former roommate. A new phase brings a close to such relationships. New phases also tend to make us close to people we weren’t close to in a former phase. However, there are friends that will stick with you through several phases. They have seen different versions of you and still love you for who you are. You will be a fool to let such friends leave. Life gets lonely, especially in the adult phases. Finding a friend may be divine but keeping a friend is intentional. Don’t forget that.

    Inasmuch as a new phase is like a reset button, there may still exist people, places and situations that may remind us of the old phases we are in desperate need to detach ourselves from. You cannot run away from your past but you can define your future. You need to remember that. Also, your past is still a major part of your beautiful story. Take that out and you’ve taken all the experiences and eye-opening situations and learnt lessons that come together to form that unique person you are.

    Redefining Yourself is a Mindset thing

    It’s easy to actually be addicted to reinventing yourself every time you move into another phase because you actually define yourself by the shames of the previous phase. Redefining Yourself is not about how others see you. Free yourself from that, for God’s sake. Define yourself for yourself. How people define you will not always favour you, no matter the phase. If you define how you see yourself, you redefine how others should see you.

    Sometimes it’s the situation that has changed, not you. If you don’t change for a more mature and renewed mindset, you can “reset” the reset. This is what I mean. Marriage doesn’t change anybody. If you marry today, it does not mean you will be a responsible person automatically. Yes, circumstances change people but it’s usually at only the beginning. Sooner or later, you end up living life like you used to.

    This explains why being rich is not about having money. Poor people get annoyed when wealthy people say being rich is a mindset. The truth is, being rich is easy. Maintaining the riches is the real deal. That’s something someone with a poverty mindset cannot do. It’s the same with every phase; getting the job is the easy part. Maintaining the job is the real deal. Getting married is the easy part. Staying married is the real deal. Buying a car is the easy part. Maintaining the car is the real deal. The attitude of a redefined person stems from their mindset, not their willpower or cheap talk.

    You can’t go around dictating to people how they ought to relate to you. Do you want to actually redefine yourself? Change the perception you have about yourself. How you see yourself determines how you carry yourself. How you carry yourself determines how people relate to you.

    ….to be continued