MIND YOURSELF

                                                                                    

When a child reaches the age of seven, it is said that he/she has reached the age of reasoning; that is, he can decipher between right and wrong and consciously tow the narrow path of good or the wide path of evil. Some people have said that children of the information age come out of the womb with their eyes wide open and reach the age of reasoning before they are 5.  Whatever the facts maybe, children have open minds that suck in information like a sponge soaks up water. This makes them very prone to influences from the outside of them. I am not so much worried about the mental development of children though as I am becoming more concerned about the process of mind control of adults who have passed the age of the commencement of reasoning and who with all their education or lack of it have the mental, emotional and physical capacity to not only tow the path of evil but widen it.

The popular belief is that when you train a child in a certain way, the child will grow up to be a product of that training. A statistician will tell you that most human characteristics tend to follow a normal distribution however there will always be outliers.  There will always be the ones that are influenced by one significant person, thing or situation during a period (perhaps a vulnerable time in that person’s life) that changes the dynamics of how he/she thinks and then acts. Looking at the 2013 Woolwich attack, I get a replay in my head of Adebolajo saying to the world telling the British government to leave their lands and I am always like “shoor! Your lands?!”  Adebolajo is a 28 year old man who schooled in Britain, brought up as a Christian boy and radically became a Muslim.  Adebolajo is a British man of Nigerian descent. In between his British origin and Nigerian ‘lands’, I do not see how he had the temerity to fight for a land that is not his, a people that are only linked to him by religion and nothing else. Religion then seems to be his only driving force.

We all have a turning point in our lives when we significantly stand up to say we are for Jesus, Allah, self or nothing but at what angle in that turning point do we go beyond the call of reasoning? Many things about faith are beyond the call of reasoning and that is why it is called faith. Faith, whatever it maybe, should not diminish life but enhance it.

What is the process of radicalization? What qualities do these mind-controlling Clerics possess to indoctrinate people that the ordinary Imam does not have? Whose agenda are they executing by radicalizing youths to kill and destroy? I wonder if I am looking too far. I remember the case of reverend King who took religion to another level. This man had followers who were devoted to him and obeyed his every command. Look at our media, are they indoctrinating us with their own truths? What is the reality of our situation in Nigeria? Whose agenda are we operating on in Nigeria? Obasanjo? ‘the Cabal?’ the UK or US? Who are those behind Boko Haram and how are they getting young men to jump to the netherworld in the name of a religion?

 It is the psychology of all of this that I am most worried about. There is always so much information out there and not all of it is true. We should be worried about those who have discovered the power to make others see things that they want to see, do things that they want them to do and most importantly believe what they want them to believe.

There will always be outliers in every society and there will always be people who have agendas and find vulnerable people to perpetrate their evil. What you can do is to protect your mind. With a conscious effort to nurture your mind with the truth you condition your mind to be positively selective of what goes in. In the words of Mahatma Ghandi I say to myself “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet”.  James Allen in As a Man Thinketh, says to us “Cherish your visions. Cherish your Ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment, of these, if you but remain true to them your world will at last be built.

WHAT CLASS ARE YOU?

Over the last decade, I have heard people say over and over again that Nigerians do not read. Perhaps it is time to do another demographic survey since Nigerians have seemingly jumped from the agrarian age to the information age. Almost everyone has access to a phone – smart or not, a large population seems to have access to affordable internet services, and quite an armful (maybe harmful) have become activists by a click or touch of their very smart gadgets. With the technological transformation, Nigeria has a better rating on the map of the world, albeit looking at the scale from which it had fallen (giant of Africa) the improvement is inconsequential. 

There is a certain class of Nigerians who are educated and have a high level of ideation. These are the people who want to do something about the issues plaguing Nigeria. These seemingly very minority group always air their views about the problems Nigeria is facing and how incompetent the leaders of this country appear to be. One thing I hardly hear from them however is the ‘way forward’ or when they do proffer solutions they do it with the effortlessness of the commentator/spectator of a football match. It is quite easy to shout at a player from the sideline about the angle from which he should kick a ball. I remember the season of Occupy Nigeria. Some of the youths that participated in this understood the hardship that would face the Nigerian people if subsidy was removed but they also understood why the government wanted to remove the fuel subsidy. Perhaps if they were to run their own governments, they would probably remove the subsidy but of course make sure that there are safety nets to help those who would be most affected. There are not many of these people. Are they useful to the Nigerian Society? Well, they can be if only they channeled their gadget-driven activism to benefit everyone with consideration for the children yet to be born.

There is another class of Nigerians who are also educated yet their thinking is greatly affected by their culture, religion that is only skin deep, values that change with the weather and the degeneration in the society so much so that it would be hard for them to look back for a second to ask why the government wants to remove fuel subsidy.  Their focus is totally on the hardship they would feel as a result of the decision and that is all that matters to them.  They never think outside their world or their box. There are many youths in this category and you would find many of them taking the lead when there are situations. They would most likely hijack a situation and of course act with no strategy or with just one strategy – how to solve their own problem. As bloggers, this category is more likely to write articles that are so skewed yet the information they provide is out there for everyone to read and in many cases accepted as truth. They seem to forget that their desktop is not the only desktop in the world and some people might call them narrow-minded because they have come to realize that there will always be an another side to a story.

There is also a category of Nigerians who are not educated yet have access to information. I call them the foot soldiers or pawns because they do the fighting and destruction. Of course I do not need to buttress the ills of having access to information without education. It was sometime last year when a story went viral about a lady that turned to a snake in a hotel in one of the eastern states of Nigeria; some angry people went to the hotel with the intention of burning it down for whatever reason.  There are many in this category and would always be useful tools for politicians and likes in rigging, intimidation and destruction and as well as Boko Haram tactics.

Then there are the people who do not have access to information with no education. These are the people who genuinely suffer from the actions of all the other categories I mentioned above. They have no platform to make any meaningful contributions to their society and they get all their information from the third category.  

I created these categories to describe in a different way the young population which is more than one third of the entire Nigerian population so that we can imagine a country where the young population is educated and has a high level of ideation with access to information and a global network such that among them they have great thinkers and implementers who are defined by the right culture, values and religion. It is evident that education is very much vital to nation building and the over 56 million youths in Nigeria must be armed with the right tools for their development if not we would have a bigger problem on our hands than the ones we think we have. Like I said at the beginning, it is time for another demographic survey.

LIAR! LIAR! PANTS ON FIRE!

Some Men would argue that the average modern Woman is a liar. Why? Do I need to start? False hair, false lashes, face-changing make up, false finger nails, excellent wonder bras, 3-6 inches addition to height, packed love handles in some tight spandex that produces an hour glass shape to mention a few. And if you call all this lies, then well, Women are so used to living this way, it has become the truth for them. They call the hair extensions “my Peruvian hair” and use words like “my nails, my lashes” etc. Hardly would any Woman agree that they are indulging in a life of falsehood. I guess I can say the same for Lance Armstrong.

It was amazing how people particularly the global society turned down their noses at Armstrong last month. It is my perception that a large number of people expected him to breakdown and cry during his interview with Oprah Winfrey, beg for forgiveness and give them an opportunity to say “you deceived us for seven years straight and you are asking for forgiveness?” engaging the world in a drama of some sort. He probably knew from the start that forgiveness would not be in the offing once he is caught and so he did everything to protect his lie until it became the truth for him. You say his apology appeared calculated. Well, yeah, because if you have told everyone your name is Simon for about 7 years, you get to believe it yourself while the truth is really lodged in a compartment in your brain; a compartment you really don’t want to have access to. You would do anything to protect that lie including bully people who know about it. Unfortunately for Armstrong, his sport had to do with having team mates. If it was a solo show, he probably would have gotten away with it. Like he said, if he did not come back, he would not have been caught.

To ‘do a big lie’ – a giant one that is worth documenting, you must forget your conscience. Not just forget, kill it. This is not an advocacy for people to see Armstrong in a better light, his actions were ‘disgusting’ as one critic I watched on CNN said neither is it an analysis of the act of lying.

If you have ever lied and started off a chain of lies, I admonish you not to turn your nose down at Armstrong. Instead take a sniff at your own scent. I have encountered many who would claim they are one thing and at that moment contradict themselves with their actions. You would hear someone claim to be honest and yet dream about an opportunity to take part in the loot for Nigeria’s treasures. The same man can swear confidently to be a person of integrity. Lying is an act so crafty, sneaky, and sly [sic]. If you put lying into a culture, it would probably get another name like protecting family interest, or protecting ‘our own’.

My advice is not this “Lie and lie until the lie becomes your truth” but that eventually the truth prevails. It always does even if it happens AD as in the case of Jimmy Savile. It may not happen in the world’s view and under the same scrutiny as the cases of Jimmy Savile and Lance Armstrong, sometimes the truth comes as a reality check, karma, and even a spiritual encounter. It doesn’t matter what form the truth comes but it is certainly easier living in truth with yourself and the world (though it might be painful and involve sacrifice).

I see Lance Armstrong as someone who has a very strong personality and has learned to mask his emotions so perhaps he is just quivering on the inside or maybe not. While the dust has settled somewhat on his case, all Armstrong has to do is look at his children every day and he will wish he had done things differently.

GENESIS: LESSONS FROM THE CREATION STORY

God plans

Looking at the order in which the world was created, it is evident that a lot of thought was put into his work. The creator God didn’t command the light just to see if it was the right kind, nor did he try to create the sky before separating the waters above from the ones below. The story of creation tells us that God loves order and he created everything in its own place and in its own time. He had a purpose for everything he created. Everyone on this earth was (is) part of the plan.
Psalm 22:10, Jeremiah 1:5, Psalm 139:13, proverbs 3: 5-6


God works per excellence

One of the surest ways to ensure your work is going as scheduled is to monitor and then evaluate. This is certainly something God did according to the creation story. Every now and then, He paused to look at what he had done and it was always good. For one to achieve excellence, one must work according to a well mapped out plan, work at it to the best of his ability and then check to ensure the work is coming out as planned. It cannot be disputed that God did an excellent job in the creation of things, nothing was a mistake, and nothing was patched up because God was tired or out of materials.


God thinks long term (The beginning of Sustainable development?)

When God was creating the earth and all it holds, he didn’t just create the first plants, animals and Man. He also made provision for the next set of young plants, animals and Man. He did his work such that the things he created could continue to bear ‘fruits and multiply’ by themselves. His love for continuity can be seen in the plan that man was supposed to exist with him for eternity. This plan was however disrupted by man’s disobedience to God. God being God, he still found a way: he gave up his Son, Jesus Christ, to die so that man will not be lost but would have a chance to live with him forever.


He had a succession plan

After He created, God gave responsibility of the earth to man. He told man to be fruitful and multiply and gave him control over all. Of course there was a purpose: for man to care for the earth and not destroy it.

I am sure that there are many more lessons to learn from the creation story but the most important one for me is that 'man was created for a purpose'. The skills and abilities we possess were given to us to give glory to God and also demonstrate the love of God to others. If you are using the talents you've been given, God is being glorified in your life. If you are using it to touch the lives of others, then you are actually doing what God has called you to do.

PERFECT JANUARY… OR NOT

I wonder if people do things perfectly in January. I am guessing that it is the month where you have the most motivated people in the world and certainly the most hopeful. Who doesn't want everything right in the first month of the year? Especially after all the prosperity talk of the watch night services, the all-night prayers and candid resolutions made. All the positive vibes can be very catchy; you just want to break into dance from all the positive energy.  A new year certainly brings hope. We certainly do not want to ‘occupy’ anything in January 2013 or any other month of this year and I am praying that here in Nigeria and around the world, there are no natural disasters or man-made ones for that matter. Let’s lock it up in 2012 (I am starting to feel like a preacher. Preach it Sister). The end of something gives a kind of closure to it and the beginning gives a fresh start. It is always refreshing to start all over. If people were given the opportunity to start their entire life again, I am sure many would take it. I might.

Some people say ‘if you start well, you will end well’. If you have lived life as you should you would know that starting something is not an indication that you would finish it. The elements between the start and the finish connect the dots. The human elements include having a good justification for doing something, adequate planning, hard work  and smart work etc, and the spiritual element I know about (that works) is constant prayer (to God almighty). If you find any ‘baba’ or friend that tells you he can do something better, just go watch the really old Nollywood movies. They will inform you of all the possible ways a ‘baba’ can screw you up.

 If your year has not started well (even though day one is not over), do not fret. Just take it one day at a time. My slogan for this year is ‘No pain, No gain’.

I join everyone, with a hopeful heart, to wish you well beyond your imagination.

Happy New Year.