WHAT YOU GIVE IS WHAT YOU’LL RECEIVE

“What goes around comes around”. I’ve been thinking of the meaning of that sentence for sometime now. I remember one Sunday when I was going to Church; I came across this little girl on the street crying. Immediately she saw me, she walked up to me and pleaded with me for N50. “What do you need N50 for?” I asked her and she replied that she lost the money given to her by her aunty to buy something from the market. I took pity on the poor little girl and took out the only money left in my purse and gave it to her. Later in the Church that same day, I was not able to give offering because the money I gave the little girl was the only money I had on me.

Days have passed since that incident when I found myself in a very difficult situation. I can never forget that Tuesday evening when I closed for work very late and was in a hurry to get home that I forgot my purse in my office. I already boarded a bus and we were nearing the bus stop when the conductor started collecting transport fare, I opened my bag and to my utmost bewilderment my purse was nowhere to be found. I searched for it in my bag thoroughly before remembering where it was. I pleaded with the conductor to help me out but he was adamant, he was about embarrassing me when a young man sitting behind me in the last row intervened and offered to help.

That day as I climbed down the bus, the picture of the little girl I helped on my way to Church flashed in my mind and I thought to myself, “What you give to others that is exactly what will come to you”. Even the Bible says, “whatever you sow, so shall you reap,” whatever you do in life just bear it in mind that whatever you give, will be given back to you, whatever you do will surely come back to you, one way or the other, either now or in the future; they call it karma. If you give love, kindness, compassion that is what will come back to you. If you give hatred, wickedness, etc, that too will return to you. Life is like a vast field and we are all farmers. A corn planter will never expect to reap groundnut, a yam cultivator will not expect to harvest cassava, what you give the earth is what it will give back to you. If you sow bountifully, you’ll reap bountifully; if you sow sparingly, you’ll definitely reap sparingly. You cannot compare the harvest of a farmer who sowed a healthy yam setting with that of a farmer who sowed with a sick seedling. Cain in the Bible offered bad sacrifice and he got bad appraisal from God but Abel gave a healthy sacrifice and he received a good appraisal from God. Maybe if I hadn’t helped that little girl, I wouldn’t have gotten any help that very day I was stranded. You may never know when you helped an angel so make it a point to reach out to people in every little way you can.

If you are to live your life with this consciousness every day, giving your all and doing what is good and right in the sight of God and of man, you will definitely receive good returns and you’ll never have the cause to regret any day in your life.

prelaunchX Invitation

prelaunchX Invitation: You're invited to join prelaunchX
Follow the link and you will not regret it.

CONFLICT OF IDEAS - SUBJECTIVITY VS OBJECTIVITY

A little girl called her father, "Daddy, Daddy," and asked him, "Is it a bad thing to steal?" Her father, surprised at the question, hushed her, "Gosh! Darling, it is bad, very bad. It is a sin before God and a crime in the sight of man." "But Daddy," the little girl persisted, "If you happen to be very hungry and your means of getting food exhausted, then suddenly you stumbled on a basket of food dropped by someone, wouldn't you take the food?" The father turned and looked at the child, mouth wide agape in bewilderment. What could have prompted that little girl to ask such a paradoxical question? From general approach, the question is simple but it is not all that it seems. If you are to take a closer look at that question, you'll find out that it has a twist that cannot be straightened out so easily. How do we really view life? What is our approach to life? Our beliefs, ideas, principles and revolutions, are they based on our personal perception and feelings or are they rather based on true evidences of reality? How would you rather conceive the world we live in, in the subjective or objective sense? These are questions pertaining to our discernment and the reasons behind them. Before we go on, let's consider the following concepts in turn.

Subjectivity: this refers to the subject and his or her perspective, feelings, beliefs and desires. Subjectivity also refers to the specific discerning interpretations of any aspect of experience. It is a way of experiencing things from a personal viewpoint, these things experienced are unique to the person experiencing them and these experiences are based on personal consciousness. As humans and individuals, all theories and philosophies that dictate our understanding of science, art, literature and every concept we have about the universe is based on human and individual perspective. It is the judgment of issues and approach to the world that is rooted in personal conceptualism, influenced by one's emotions, feelings, rules, principles, beliefs, environment, what one thinks or feels is right and what is not. It is the experience and the perception of the world from within. On the other hand, objectivity refers to the concept of seeing the world exactly for what it is from a viewpoint free from human perception and its influences, human cultural interventions, past experience and expectation of the result.

Objectivity has to do with truths which are mind independent i.e. not based on the judgment of a conscious entity or subject. To be objective means to cultivate a distinctive scientific self wherein views are not based on personal perception as an individual but on laid out truth as a member of a scientific community. It pertains to the relationship of consciousness to existence. Now a conflict is born when these controversial questions are asked, "Are we to consider life from the subjective or objective sense? Can a totally subjective or objective viewpoint be achieved? Can each of these concepts exist independently, or do they need the existence of one another to function?"
I never finished my story about the little girl and the father. After moments of thoughtful hesitation, the father replied the child, "Honey, you can then term it to be providence. You can either wait for the person to return so as to gain permission or take a bit of the food and before leaving, drop a note explaining the reason for your action." Now that is a controversial case. Using the story above as a case study, there are two things involved; the existence of reality which is seen in the form of hunger and the consciousness of the person involved which is based on his moral disposition.

The situation is this; the man involved is torn between feeding his hunger as nature demands that he should and judging his action based on his moral beliefs. His action and opinion are controlled by his subjective sense, he is considering the situation from individuality based on his personal experience but that doesn't solve the reality of the hunger he is feeling. Now as to whether to view life from a completely subjective or objective sense, there is no known answer but one fact remains indefatigable and that is, these two concepts cannot be separated from each other. They actually co-exist. Without the existence of one, the other cannot function. For example, the life we live and everything in it all came through imagination and there is no how ideas from our mind would have been realized without reality itself. These concepts are self-conflicting and contradictory, the more you try to understand it, the more it gets you frustrated but in all these, for man to truly experience himself in the true sense, he should recognize the fact that his consciousness must acquire knowledge of reality. He should embrace the notion that truth is not automatically available to a human consciousness and can be obtained only by a certain mental process which is required of every man who seeks knowledge - that there is no substitute for this process, no escape from the responsibility for it. He should realize that man when it comes to knowledge decides what he chooses to do, according to what he has learned and his experience which therefore incapacitates him to look at life from the realistic viewpoint, however it is expedient for him to understand that he cannot create reality and can achieve his values only by making his decisions consonant with the facts of reality and also to always bear in mind that reality exists independent of one's perception of it. It is only then will he start experiencing the world in its uniqueness.

RIGHT APPROACH TO LOVE

Love is strong affection for somebody or something. When you hold someone dear to your heart like you don't want to lose them, then you love them. Love is not lust of the flesh (loving someone for what you see), love is not selfish (loving someone for what you stand to get from the person), love is not sexual attraction (craving to have sex with the person), rather it is that special, inexplicable connection with someone.

It's unfortunate that most people mistake lust to be love. Some people think that sex is a way of showing how much you love someone. Well, that's another misguided notion of what love is all about.

Its not easy to find somebody who loves you genuinely and whom you can love unconditionally but when you find that special person, make no mistake of letting the person slip through your fingers, notwithstanding the circumstance of your meeting because if you do, you may be turning your back on your true love.
Sometimes it feels right to let it out. You'll feel a big burden taken off your shoulders but if you continue to keep it, you heart will be heavy and a time will come when it'll just explode and may be by then, it might be too late. Don't hesitate any longer, let it off and feel peace within your soul.

Love is not to be shy of, it's not to be bottled up, it's not something to pretend about, love is meant to be shared. Love is all about sharing. Love is the essence of existence. When you love somebody, admit it to yourself that you love the person, don't try to suppress or hide it unless if the situation doesn't seem right. We are in a free world and I don't think there is any law against loving someone. Do not make the mistake of chasing away someone you love in pretext of not loving the person because believe me, a time will come when you can no longer bear the feeling, a time will come when it'll burst out.

Let your heart always be open for love, do not because of your past life or failed relationships, elude the bright lights of true love. Do not attribute your former relationship to your present love life, it'll do no good, it'll only destroy your love.

Have you been hurt in the past and you think that there can be no true love, that they are all the same? You don't have to feel that way, remember there are other fishes in the ocean. Just pat yourself at the back and hope for another day. You can always find someone who loves you wholeheartedly for whom you are and not for what you have. But before that, make sure you tried everything possible for your previous relationship to work, else you may repeat the same mistake in your new relationship because that might be the relationship of your life and if you fuck up, you may never get to forgive yourself for what the outcome may be. You may not be able to bear it this time.

Even if it is your fist time, try relaxing yourself, your mind and body. Be open, release yourself to love. If you don't give the chance to love, you may never get to feel what its like to be loved or to be in love. Life is a game of luck, if you don't try, you may never know when you'll win. Try first and even if it doesn't work, you shouldn't give up. The next person might just be the one your life has been waiting for. But that doesn't mean you should rush into any relationship that comes your way. Take out time and scrutinize the whole thing, get to know the true purpose of the person in question before taking the next step.

There are people who come into your life and change it for the better. There are people who will leave lasting impressions in your heart but how do you get to know them if you don't give love a chance to reign. Love is meant to be shared, shown and felt. So don't be afraid to love. Being a coward in love may kill your chances of being happy. Do not fear, summon courage and confess your love to him or her. He could be the one for you. She could be the one for you. Profess, share, show and feel your love, that might be your chance of being happy.

At times it may sound foolish depending on the circumstance involved, but it is a risk worth taking. Accept to be a fool and in your foolishness be wiser. It doesn't do any harm being a fool in loving someone as far as it is reciprocated in the end, even if it is not, then at least you'll feel an inner peace knowing that "She knows I love her", that should be enough to comfort you, because you can never tell, she might change her mind.

YOUR CHOICE, YOUR RESPONSIBILITY

Believe me when I say there is no responsibility heavier than the responsibility of your own self. The responsibility of your choice and decision. You have yourself to blame for the outcome of every choice you make in life. You are responsible for the way your life has turned out to be, you are responsible for your failures and accomplishments. It'd only be foolish to deny the responsibility of your decisions. Accept the responsibility of your mistakes so that you'll learn from them.


I remember when I used to starve myself whenever I'm provoked. There would be enough food in the house, but I'd rather starve myself than take even a single spoonful of the food. Now in that kind of situation; am I supposed to blame anyone for my hunger? The simple thing would have been putting away all my anger and freeing my heart of all bitterness and enjoy my food but because I'd rather blame someone else for the heaviness of heart and the hunger that I felt, I stayed hungry.

In life we are all presented with choices everyday and you are to shoulder the responsibility of the choice you make. If you are a student and you have an exam to write and instead of studying, you spend your time watching television, playing games and chatting, when the time for the exam comes, you'll have no one but yourself to blame for not preparing and you'll have to deal with the responsibility of failing the exam. You are in a relationship and you expect your partner to propose to you, yet you don't make any effort to ensure your relationship works, you fight all the time and you don't try to understand him, you don't even try to make him feel loved, if your relationship fails, you'll have to bear the disappointment it brings with it. That is your cross.

But do you know the interesting part? Let's assume that your life is in a mess right now, that you're even a very bad person and there is nothing pleasant about you. I have good news for you, and that good news is you can still turn your life around and enjoy the benefits of being a good person. You can decide to shun evil today and do away with your bad personality.

Maybe you are hurt because you are due for promotion and instead of you being promoted, another person got that promotion. This might make you feel sad, disappointed, like you are no good. No, you shouldn't feel that way. There are always opportunities, if you look closely, you'll see other ways for your hard work to be appreciated. There is a saying, "If you don't choose, you are unconsciously making a choice for others to choose for you", so don't let anyone determine or decide for you how you should feel, make a decision, change the way you feel about yourself and put that decision into motion through your actions and you'll be surprised to see how things will change for the best for you.

Remember there is a bit of goodness in everyone, no matter how bad or weak you or people think you are, there is a bit of goodness in you. I've heard stories of how prostitutes, ritualists, occultists and high profile assassins gave up their crooked way of life and are today living a justified life. I've also heard stories about people who were tagged weak and dull made it in life just by making a single decision and taking a single step. You too can do that; you can decide to change your life. You may like to think of your past life as an accident or a long nightmare. I would like you to think of this day as a new dawn, a long awaited morning after the nightmares of yesterday. Are you having doubts about your life? It's time to stop having doubts, face life as it comes, make your decisions and stand by them. This could be your chance of living a good life, of making things right. It's only a matter of choice and don't forget "your choice is your responsibility".
Another thing friend, make the right choices today, so that you'll be glad to shoulder the responsibilities that will come with them tomorrow.

DIARY OF A LOVEBIRD

Only if I could turn back the hands of time (R-Kelly) I will be living next door to Alice (Smoke). As you see me so (2 Face), I have been searching for true love (2 Face), looking for one to call my own. And when I found her, I felt like I was living in a Greenland (TyBello).

Then, there came a Friday night (Black Solo), we went to a party, we were having fun, but it so happened that I saw a tattoo girl (Faze). She was hot, sexy and very irresistible. I was dazed, my eyes popped wide, before I knew what was doing, my amorous desire made me take my drink and two steps (Cassidy) sneak away from my lady towards this angel on earth who made me lose control (Miss Elliot) at first sight.

On reaching where she was, I said "hello" (Lionel Richie) to her, she turned, flashed me a charming smile and told me to buy her a drink (T.Pain) which I did. As she guzzled it, I told her "girl, you are beautiful" (James Blunt) and I want to get to know you more," but she replied, "You are not alone" (Micheal Jackson). I then told her to look into my eye (Akon), she did and said that she saw her face alone (Faze), so I told her that she was my Cinderella (Lionel Richie) and I want to be more than a friend (P.Square) to her.

After we talked (Eldee) for a while, I asked to dance with her, she agreed and we went dancing and I tell you man I loved the way she rolled it (P.Square) which actually made my forget my lady in red (Chris de Burg).

After we danced, she lured me to her bed (J. Holiday) of guns and roses (Lucky Dube). It was such a sexual healing (Marvin Gaye) which made me sacrifice (Elton John) my respect (Lucky Dube) for my 'abandoned' angel of my life (Paul play). But before I knew it, I was already at the end of the road (Boy II Men), as instant as the rays of the sun, the realization of what I had done struck me at once and I cried; 'Why me?' (D banj). It then appeared to me that I had to make a sweet escape (Gween Stefani) from this dragon lady and go back to my love (Sean Kingston) If I was to save my face. But alas it was already too late for that but I had a flicker of hope on my mind.

And so I rushed out of the room and went in search of my Soul Survivor (Akon) but when I found her and made to take her into my arm, did you know what happened? of course, your guess is as good as mine, she pushed me away and when I asked her to wait a minute (Pussy Cat Dolls) she turned round and told me that she never recognized a player a player (Boss Hog Outlaws) else she wouldn't have been such a fool. I told her, "Girl, I've been saving all my love for you," (Whitney Houston), with so much anger and bitterness in her voice, she thundered out and said to me, "You're just a beautiful liar," (Beyounce). Those words of hers cast a chill on me and made me feel guilty. So, I walked away frustrated, like a drenched hen and resolved to head for the Heart Break Hotel (Whitney) where I could think things through and have a fresh start.


Oh! A heartbreaking experience it was! In all my life (Joe) she was the sweetest girl (Wyclef Jean) I had never dated a girl who made me feel like a man. It was a painful pleasure, I regretted my actions but I'm sorry to say that I lost her, never set my eyes on her again, that taught me never to cheat on my woman.
Indeed, I learned from the best (W. Houston).

A PRESENCE WITHIN

I don't know if you've had this feeling before. A feeling of emptiness, of frustration, of depression. It is as if there is a vacuum in your heart that cannot be filled. You feel sad, very sad but you don't why you are sad. It's like you can never be happy, that life has nothing for you. You watch celebrities and you wonder if their world is real.

Everything you've ever conceived, every inspiration, every idea becomes unreal, a fantasy. It's like you are falling into a deep hole and there is no one to bring you out. You look at the world around and you feel bad, like there's no reason to hope anymore. It's like your dreams will not come true and you think that there's no reason to live anymore. You lose all trust, all faith and you feel miserable, like you are left alone in a world that is lifeless, void of any pleasant moment.  There is no one to open your heart to and you even feel like committing suicide, ending your worthless life.

But even amidst that, you feel a presence within you, and you hear a faint voice calling out to you to hold on a little longer and saying no to all the negative thoughts whirling inside you. It's like the voice is arguing with you, telling you not to give up. That's the "PRESENCE WITHIN."

The Bible recorded that in the beginning, Gen. 1:2, "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." His presence is always within us, even in darkness, you feel him, it's His presence that fills an empty soul with melody and makes merry a sad heart. His presence empties emptiness and occupies all voids. It's the same presence that brings inspirations and ideas. It brings music to your ears and joy to your heart.

His presence that is the only thing you need to fill the emptiness in your soul and the vacuum in your heart. So, the next time you are feeling downtrodden, you know exactly what to do. With closed eyes and uplifted hands, lift up your spirit to Him, let your inner being soar and let your soul rise up to acknowledge Him. Let His Spirit fill your whole being, and right there at that moment, you will feel His presence within you, taking up every little space in your being, wiping away all depression from heart and worries from your mind, erasing the bitterness you feel in your spirit and bringing an unearthly peace to your soul.

ARE YOU LIVING OR JUST SURVIVING?

I look around me and I see people, I see things, the buzz is everywhere. Everyday people wake up, dress and go out to different destinations with different purposes. A great deal of people go to their office to work, some go to school to study, but only few have good reasons for going where they are going and doing things they are doing.
Have you ever taken out time to ask yourself if you are truly living or just surviving? Ever thought about your dreams and aspirations? Ever stopped on your tracks to think about your life and your world? Or is your life just the same everyday, rushing out in the morning and coming back late at night to rest and the next day the same thing happens?
Some people don't know what they do nor have reasons for doing what they do. There are some people who have never thought about their life for even once, they just continue in the same old routine of life, everyday, till the end of the year, the next and so on. People like this may live their lifetime chasing after one single thing and ignoring other opportunities that may come their way and as a result of that, they remain where they are, day after day, year after year and you can imagine what a boring life that would be.
This is a time for a change, a little adjustment here and there. Jack Dixon asserts, "If you focus on results, you will never change. If you focus on change, you will get results." So I need you to do this;
First of all get yourself into a cool environment and try relaxing yourself. Make sure you are comfortable, once you have achieved that, do the following:
1. Try observing the environment you are in for a moment, take pain to absorb every single detail into your being. You will be shocked to see the revelation this will open to you.
2. Take out a pen and paper and write down everything you know about your life. Your challenges, your achievements, your failures, your likes and dislikes, just about everything you know about your life.
3. After that, write down the things you want out of life, how you would like to live your life, and your expectations in life.
4. Once you've done that, write down areas in your life where changes need to be made in order to bring into reality your dream life.
5. Then map out strategies on how to make those changes and achieve your target goals.

After you've done all these, as you prepare to leave where you are, I want you to have this resolution to start effecting changes in your life, utilizing every opportunity that comes by in every possible way. Try making use of the strategies you've mapped out to do this. It's not enough to just think, you also need to act to change those thoughts and ideas into something tangible. Even the Bible says, "Faith without work is dead." So act now and you'll realize how easy it is to live and live the life of your dreams and not just surviving.
Good luck.