Qualities For Success

Discipline and Diligence... Persistence and Perseverance... Faith and Focus... Things one must have to succeed. Everyone wants these qualities; indeed most claim to have them. The truth we know deep within but sometimes refuse to even accept is that these qualities are not things to be had, but cultivated. For them to be truly what they are, they have to stand the tests of time and adversity. The strength to cultivate them doesn't necessarily have to originate from one's self; one can tap into the strength of others by sharing one's vision and goals with them and telling them to make sure they hold one accountable for one's words. This way if one deviates unconsciously, there is always a kind voice around to put one back on the right path. So I say to you, whatever you want to be, start proclaiming it to yourself and others today. I go hammer! I go fine! I go know Maths! I go pass JAMB! I go get Job! Come on! Keep them coming...

Perspectives

Someone said:The only treasure they can't steal from me is the one stored in my head. With present-day and future technology, that may not be valid. Privacy no longer has a tangible definition; any one who has the urge and wherewithal can know what you do everywhere, even in your toilet. Our perception of things,which depends on the kind of information we have, determines how we shape the world around us. A knife in the hands of a lumberjack or woodcutter does not perform the same function as when it is in the hands of a sculptor. A woodcutter with a knife looks at a piece of wood and sees the next bit of fuel for his cooking hearth. A sculptor with a knife will look at a piece of wood and probably see Abraham Lincoln's head in it. If you will love to know more of what a knife can do, give one to an assassin and tell him to look at you. The bottom-line is, that you should feed your brain with the right information,such that you will suitably fortified to surmount any challenges that might bar your way to success. See beyond what is; perceive only that which may be and success will come chasing you pants-in-hand.

So You Don't Know Maths?

I wonder if there is truly anyone on earth who is not an expert mathematician. To start with,the human brain performs most of its functions after performing intense calculations e.g adjusting heart rate,concentration of body fluids,interpreting nerve signals etc. Okay,those examples may have been a bit confusing but this isn't: have you ever crossed a busy road? If yes, then your brain had to calculate that the time it would take the nearest oncoming car to reach you was greater than the time you needed to get across. If your brain has ever made a mistake in its calculations... well, you might not be reading this. The calculation mentioned above would take a scientist minutes to solve but your brain does it in split seconds,unconciously as you would know.The brain is like an extraordinary computer with infinite space and data storage capabilities. So next time you get low scores on a maths test,it means...I think you know.

Common Wonders!

Have you ever thought of these: "why rain falls in drops"; "air is gaseous,not liquid"; "iron rusts but gold doesn't"; "why you can't sneeze with your eyes open"; "why you seem to yawn when you others doing it(i said it,you are yawning now)". All of these are things that happen around us which we just ignore,we should learn to be more appreciative of mother nature. Take out time and appreciate the beauty of Mother Nature today.

Naija Enterprise

There is something I love about the country, Nigeria: the prevalence of the spirit of free enterprise. I'm not much of an economist but I can't think of any suitable term to describe the Nigerian economic system. It's not capitalist like the US, socialist like the Soviet nations, or even a mixed economic system as seen in certain developing economies. It changes depending on an innumerable number of factors: the political party in power, time of the year, state of financial morale of the populace etc. This dynamism often manifests itself subtly in various facets of Nigerian culture and induces peculiar reactions from the people which foreign nationals would find strange. It works both for good and bad as the average Nigerian would overlook some blatant acts of injustice, seeing them as a part of life's normal routine while the same person would flare up at the mention of a trivial matter especially if it has to do with religion or helpless kids. There is hardly a place where this peculiar nature is more manifest than the way we handle intellectual property rights. Simply put, such a concept doesn't exist in a Nigerian's lexicon. If you can produce something and my having it doesn't prevent you from using your copy, then I'm welcome to use it as I please, regardless of whatever pains and sacrifices you might have had to make to produce said thing. As Nigerians say: sharing is caring. In Nigeria, people hardly ever pay to listen to songs, watch movies or read books; everything has to be free. Anybody who wants to make money from intellectual products must resort to some very creative marketing approaches, approaches which are also likely to be pirated. For example, if a fictitious artiste called RhymzBoi releases an album today, he can rest assured that within a few hours his entire album will be available for FREE download on the net. Within a few days, derivative tracks and cover songs based on his album would have flooded the net, choking any immediate revenue he might have expected from the album. The fact is, Nigerians don't just want a product to be free, they also require the means of obtaining said product to be free, hence the proliferation of free browsing cheat codes. This is equivalent to a guy who orders a product by mail and expects the courier company to deliver his package for free and when they don't, he finds an alternative means of making them do it. In essence, Nigerians can not only pirate physical products but full-scale courier companies - DHL and UPS beware. As they say, again: we too much! Nigerians are intelligent, enterprising people who always find ingenious ways to extricate themselves from even the tightest of corners. We are a hardy breed; able to take knocks - both literal and figurative - from multiple directions without capitulating. Regardless of our ethnic, religious and political differences, we have managed to soldier on as one nation; united in our goal to achieve a prosperous and peaceful country. Even with the recent emergence of certain elements who would see the fragile cohesion of this country's people come to naught, we have still managed to stand strong. With this in mind, I want to wish all Nigerians the best as we celebrate 54 years of freedom from colonialism. May the years and anniversaries ahead be better than those yet seen. Note from RhymzBoi : If you are a musician, artist, movie producer, inventor or creator of any form of intellectual property, you can discover ways of protecting your work from pirates in my album to be released tomorrow. If you like, follow pirate that one, God dey heaven dey watch. The thunder wey go handle you still dey Shaolin Temple dey learn work.

Change

Change can come and the best part is it doesn't have to begin with you... just make darn sure it begins with the person next to you. Trust me, in typical human fashion, the person will reciprocate.

Funny Success

Success is one heck of a thing. It refuses to come to you when you stay and wait for it... It runs like the wind when you chase it... When you finally catch up to it, it calls its brethren to come and be with you... you just wonder they had been all the while And if you mistakenly allow it to leave, it takes its brethren along... and some more, too.

The Free Life

The best things in life are free: the beauty of the night sky; the melody of the swirling sea; the gentle touch of cool breeze; the fragrance of wild flowers; the refreshing taste of water and the unflinching love of a mother.

Dare To Be Unique - Be You

Why pick a lock, when you can break the wall? Sure, picking the lock takes less effort and is probably better-suited to your purposes but it does not provide a long-term solution. Each time you need access to wherever the door in question leads, you have to pick the lock again. And again. This, quite clearly, is not a desirable state-of-affairs. A method of opening the door which would guarantee permanent accessibility would then be of great advantage. breathing the walls around the door is one such method. Once you've emphatically proven your abilities to break through walls, no one will dare lock a door against you. This not only provides permanent access but also sends a message: "I'm in charge!", even when you were clearly not. Lock-picking is subtle and diplomatic but subtlety and diplomacy are only required in situations where one doesn't have absolute control. On the other hand, breaking a wall with RPGs proves irrefutably that one is in charge. Case in point: the United States' use of nuclear bombs to end the Second World War. Although only two such bombs were deployed, there was no telling how many more of these devastatingly lethal weapons the Americans had in their arsenal. The mere "possibility" that the USA could unleash more of these weapons on their enemies resulted in the end of the war. Gruesome as this example is, it goes to show the importance of having something one can depend on to perform at any time. Moral: Discover a fool-proof, infallible tool, product or skill and use it as your selling point and you'll be sure to succeed at whatever you do. Remember, the obvious answer is not always the best.

Greed Is Not Always Bad

Greed and generosity can go together. It's okay to be greedy enough to want something extravagant for yourself... just as long as you are generous enough to want that same thing for others around you.

Effective Time Saving

Put in the time NOW to be excellent at your art, so that when others are rushing to meet unimaginable deadlines, you can be their lifeline. If you don't take time to perfect your art and do things well, you will eventually have to take time to detect errors and do things over.

Easy Clairvoyance

There is hardly ever anything fortunate about Fortune. Fame might come by chance, but Fortune hardly ever does. There are many ways to get famous but much of this Fame is of little worth, as evidenced by the many "famous" people who have little to show for their popularity. To acquire Fortune in any aspect of life, it is necessary to put in the work required. The easiest way to predict the future is to shape it yourself.

Create That Thing You Wish For - No One Else Will!

A house changes the look and value of the real estate around it by its mere presence. The change could be positive or negative depending on the nature of the house... and also it's environment. A magnificent mansion brings out the beauty of the space around it while a dilapidated shack only serves to make the flaws of other things around it more vivid. We can improve the value of those around us by first working on ourselves, then extending the blessings from the positive changes we experience to others. Be a blessing to somebody today and you just could be the answer to an earnest prayer. Imagine the beauty in that!

Who took all the money?

Aliens must exist! Practically every country in the world has some form of national debt, so aliens must have been the ones lending the peoples of Earth all that money. Alternatively, we could have a case of mutual indebtedness - countries borrowing from each other and using the money injudiciously. Like some people I know who borrow huge sums to host "owanbe" parties. Nigeria has many resources - arable land, access to the sea and internal waterways, minerals, crude oil and, most importantly, industrious people. ( There is no nation on Earth that can match our hustling level. I can't say about the aliens, though.) Yet, many countries not as naturally-endowed are called "developed" while we are teased with the euphemism "developing" - when will we finish developing? There must be some trick these "developed" people are using and we just have to find out. PS: It seems some Nigerians do know this trick but have only used it to "develop" their pockets. You know them now, don't you?

Aspire To Greatness

Aspire to greatness... aspire to excellence. Our conscious aspirations determine our attitudes and habits. These attitudes and habits rub off on those around us, even without their knowing it. When we are around diligently positive people who work towards their preset goals, we are also moved to pursue our dreams. Be an inspiration to someone around you by believing in yourself... you just can't tell who might be drawing strength from your belief. This is to those who believe in us, even when our self-belief waver. You guys are indeed answers to prayers... and that's just true beauty.

Staying Tops

It takes a lot of effort to get to the top but just a little more to stay there. However, that "little" additional effort is absolutely compulsory - it cannot be avoided. The good news is, once you've gotten to the top, your abilities are not questioned or assessed as much as during the your growing period. So, it's okay to slack a little once in a while. However, if "once in a while" becomes "all the time", then there's an issue. As my naija people say: one day breeze go blow and... well, just know something very embarrassing happens to a certain fowl.

Difficult Blessings

It's sometimes said that every difficulty is a blessing in disguise. That's not entirely true. Difficulties don't directly equate to blessings; the blessings are in the lessons learnt and the new abilities obtained by surmounting the difficulties. Take a lady stuck on a deserted interstate highway with a flat tyre, for instance; she has a difficulty, which she can not even see as a blessing. However, if she has watched her mechanic switch her tyres before, she could simply take out the tools required and fix in a spare tyre. In doing this, she would have learnt a new and valuable skill - which is a blessing. The skill gained is the blessing, not the difficulty itself.