Making You Happy

It's been a while I posted something here and I'm still thinking I don't really know what to write but this is my blog and I can write when and what I feel like. If you don't like it, go and get your own. Just joking, :) I'm smiling ear to ear sure there are no haters here, bobos. Thanks for coming here after a while anyway, at least you're still faithful to the blog. God would bless your ministry. I hope you said 'Amen'.

Today, I just thought about days when things aren't so sweet and if you're like me, receiving no inspiration to be creative. What do you do to survive? Yeah! I mean it SURVIVE, cause some situations are threatening your existence, adaptation and being productive in whatever area you are facing this threat.

It's not like I'm feeling low today, I'm just wondering about days when things aren't so great and you're beginning to doubt somethings you've said to you about you, maybe in front of the mirror.
What do you do to help the situation on a bad day?
How do you get yourself happy again?

PS: I'm going to be addressing an important topic after this and your comments would help so much in making it possible. Thanks for dropping your thots in the comment box. ;)

today's number (2)

I didn’t plan to write a sequel to the prequel of this post, but I think I like to use the same title for the post so I’m game.

I wrote the prequel as my birthday post last year and it was my birthday yesterday :(. Did I just hear you say “huh?!” cause that smiley is sad and you are seeing correctly? My sister doesn’t think that’s cool too.

Yes! I’m not excited about this particular birthday cause since the very beginning of this year, the new age I’d be had been ringing in my head like I had already turned the age, I’ve felt like an agbaya with nothing to show for my age ever since and everyday has felt like a negative countdown to the D-day.

Don’t worry my musing today is not so melancholic, it’s just more introspective than last year’s so I might need some light cause it’s getting dark in here.

Oh! Here’s the light. It is Psalm 90. To my surprise the writer is Moses, funny I never knew that detail till I read it last Friday and was sure this was going to feature on my birthday post. I think he wrote on his 80^th birthdayJ. It comes in MSG version. Enjoy!

Psa 90:1  A prayer of Moses, man of God. God, it seems you've been our home forever;

Psa 90:2  long before the mountains were born, Long before you brought earth itself to birth, from "once upon a time" to "kingdom come"--you are God.

Psa 90:3  So don't return us to mud, saying, "Back to where you came from!"

Psa 90:4  Patience! You've got all the time in the world--whether a thousand years or a day, it's all the same to you.

Psa 90:5  Are we no more to you than a wispy dream, no more than a blade of grass

Psa 90:6  That springs up gloriously with the rising sun and is cut down without a second thought?

Psa 90:7  Your anger is far and away too much for us; we're at the end of our rope.

Psa 90:8  You keep track of all our sins; every misdeed since we were children is entered in your books.

Psa 90:9  All we can remember is that frown on your face. Is that all we're ever going to get?

Psa 90:10  We live for seventy years or so (with luck we might make it to eighty), And what do we have to show for it? Trouble. Toil and trouble and a marker in the graveyard.

Psa 90:11  Who can make sense of such rage, such anger against the very ones who fear you?

Psa 90:12  Oh! Teach us to live well! Teach us to live wisely and well!

Psa 90:13  Come back, GOD--how long do we have to wait?-- and treat your servants with kindness for a change.

Psa 90:14  Surprise us with love at daybreak; then we'll skip and dance all the day long.

Psa 90:15  Make up for the bad times with some good times; we've seen enough evil to last a lifetime.

Psa 90:16  Let your servants see what you're best at-- the ways you rule and bless your children.

Psa 90:17  And let the loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us, confirming the work that we do. Oh, yes. Affirm the work that we do!

I guess you want to post your wishes now. Feel free to do so in the comment box. XOXO

NOTICE TO READERS OF THIS BLOG

PLEASE POST YOUR COMMENTS

Okay! So I have not written anything to post over a week now, but there's just something that has been bothering me about this blog.

It is that the readers of this blog have neglected the part where they post their comments. Yes I'm talking about YOU reading right now. I spend time putting my thoughts together and asking for yours (in return) on whatever topic it is and the response I get is NOTHING. I thought the name of this blog 'thots-to-share' would give that away.

Abeg, your comments do give me the assurance that you are really reading what I write, I learn from you, and get to improve on my views about those topics and my writing skills. It also encourages me to keep doing more. Please don't wash down my enthusiasm. This is coming straight from my heart.

Or am I doing something wrong or not well enough?

You could tell me why you don't post comments about the blog posts on this blog.

I would really appreciate it. Thanks

Today's Thot To Share

1Co 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

The place of vision, hard work, persistence, perseverance, consistency, basking in grace by giving you a break, and taking the challenge to be the best you are enabled to be by God’s grace cannot be over emphasized. It is found in every success story, but I still wonder that in proportion to the Earth’s population, those who have outstanding results from these values are few. But I’m undaunted as I run MY race that I'm possible and unstoppable.

1Co 15:58  Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. 

This is my thot to share today. What's yours?

In Pursuit of Financial Freedom

I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I desire to place one in the mouths of my children and not struggle at keeping it there. My desire would not be gotten by financial security (By getting married to a knight in SHINY ARMOUR, you know what I mean. ;)) but by financial freedom.

Because I also love to have a GREAT life (which entails a lot), I do want to get financial freedom at an early age. So watch out for me, I’m a billionaire in the making.

What is financial freedom? Financial freedom is when the sum of your passive income is WAY greater than the sum of your expenses. I hope I’ve not started with the jargons? Just in case you don’t understand that definition, I would define income as money coming in and expense as money going out. I hope that’s simple enough.

I would further explain as I have learnt that we may not all have income in common but what we all have in common is expense, whether or not we earn, we do spend money. Income can come in two ways as explained by Robert Kiyosaki as Active income and Passive income. Active income is anything that involves your time, energy, money and presence to bring the money in. While Passive income is anything that does not require the active involvement of your time, energy or life to bring the money in (That means the money keeps coming in even after death).

Expenses also are in two ways, Budgeted expenses and unbudgeted expenses. Budgeted expense is the money you plan or are looking forward to spend on something in particular, while an unbudgeted expense is just the opposite.

 You can have both incomes, just one, which is absolutely going to be active income, or none. But you would always and without fail have both budgeted and unbudgeted expenses (I think it is inevitable). I believe you have to go through or make active income, before you make passive income.

So I want to have the sum of my passive income to be WAY greater than all of my expenses. Great! My pursuit of financial freedom is not synonymous to a get rich quick scheme or mentality or a rat race. I desire to learn, know, grow patiently and be rightly guided unto financial freedom by standing on the shoulder of giants and riding on the wings of eagles. So help me God.

Taking a snapshot of my current financial status, I look like a total mess. I’m not even on square one I’m on square zero. But the journey to financial freedom starts with the honest snapshot of my current financial situation. In fact, I’m embarrassed by what it looks like at my AGE and SHOE SIZE (Marital Status not yet included).

Azzin… look at Dr. Farrah Gray, who fooled me that I had to be done with schooling, then get a job, than maybe I could start making money after?! Finding out his story really got me inspired and feeling like I had wasted my youth. But I’m bracing up and giving my dreams a long shot, deciding to be a relentless builder of a financial dynasty that would be worthy of note.

I hope you find this interesting and of help to you. Your thoughts about this write up are most welcome in the comments box. Thanks for sharing this post as I believe you would and for dropping your comments as I believe you are going to right NOW. ;)

OMG! I Dint Just Forget Our Anniversary!

"Oh My God! Adeyinka are you that bad at remembering dates?!"

I just realized that today marks a year I started this blog and had my first post. Too late to compose a good write up for today, so I thought I'd just show what my first post was like. I would like to add that you do post your comments after, to let me know YOU have been here, I would really appreciate it, thanks for reading my blog and don't forget to come back here. God bless you. Click on the link to read my first blog

An introduction to me.

My Dorky Yoruba Tongue: The Journey To Cultural Identity

“Ta ba n sun kun, A ma n riran.”

Don’t be deceived, you don’t want to hear me speak what I just wrote in Yoruba. If you don’t understand the language, don’t worry I didn’t insult you, in fact I can still be sold out by my mother and father tongue.

Manny, one of the teenagers in the teens’ Church choir just laughed at me as he said “Aunty, you’re speaking your Yoruba like Igbo”, the others joined him in the laugh and they had that look in their eyes that said ‘Your Yoruba is Dorky’.
No? I’m not angry…Why was I trying to speak the Yoruba sef?  LOL! This was not the first time anyway; I get the social perception of not being Yoruba most times. No matter how I felt I was trying to speak this Yoruba judiciously in the university, I was still accused of not knowing how to speak well or not speaking at all. I was always wise not to try speaking the language to justify myself, even when I was compelled to do so, I’d be shooting myself in the leg if I made that mistake. Doing it consciously for four years and not getting it right? I could hide for only two sentences before I get discovered.

I got home and told my mother I was done with speaking Yoruba (I wish!).

And I’ve always had a good performance in the language as a subject o. In my WAEC and NECO I had B’s in Yoruba, throughout that session in JSS1 I had 100% in Yoruba and got a prize for it, even when I schooled in Osogbo where pupils were normally Yoruba speaking and needed to be fined for vernacular, I topped the class in Yoruba language also. So what on earth was the problem?

I believe I was trained with both English and Yoruba though, my siblings think it was just English first, but I think I liked English better and it’s not like I’m good at it sef.  As I grew, if not my parents, my aunts, uncles and other relatives insisted on my speaking Yoruba, but I had realized my strong will already and refused even if they threatened. Some of them even jokingly called me oyinbo.
No matter the environment, my tongue was stuck on speaking English. Though all of my education was located in the south western Nigeria, I spoke English, till I got to the University.

Something changed, I wanted my cultural identity. No one thought I was Yoruba from my looks (I wonder how they judge by looks) till I told them i was, one of my classmates even called me YorubaIgbo often and if I kept blasting in English language, how would they know? So, I decided to get my identity through speaking my mother tongue and it obviously is not werking.

I do love my ethnic group a lot, the people, the language and its art, the art itself, the culture, the artifacts, the excesses, the behavioural dispositions, the accent, the fashion sense, the good bad and ugly, you name it. The truth is that I really do have my cultural identity; it’s not just in the packaging. LOL!

Church Vs The Fashionista: The Fear of Being Preached At

One Friday afternoon, after I was done with a meeting with the Charity organization I was a member on campus, I was headed for my room, I met one of my friends *Shina, who used to attend my Christian fellowship once upon a time. My phone’s battering was running down and I didn’t want it to automatically power off soon but I didn’t mind sacrificing time to inquire of his welfare, at least he wasn’t on the run to another lecture this time.

 So, how was he doing? Sometime ago, he told me he was busy in Lagos with the fashion industry, so he wasn’t always around for Sunday services in my fellowship and had to attend another that held their meeting in the evening if he did at all. Now, he was less busy but wasn’t attending any Church. To get the reason why, I had to press further. So he said it was because he wanted to avoid being criticized for his dress sense.

Let me paint a picture of his appearance. His hair is dyed gold (Or is it blonde?) with brown, bluish-green contact lenses, pencil jeans, bogus footwear and any other thing that’s fad. Not so conventional for naija right? But he didn’t want to be judge by the way he dressed, he said “I don’t know why people would see me and say I can’t be Christian because of the way I dress, I’m into fashion and I do dress like it.” (I paraphrased)

His fashion sense may even make you question his sexual orientation. At least I have, in my thoughts, and not had enough nerve to confront that aspect.

I believe *Shina is not the last of his kind in Church; I believe you do see people who you think their fashion sense is kind of overboard in Church.

Does dressing what’s in vogue have anything to do with your spirituality?

Should we preach at people like this in Church?

Should they resort to Home Chapel like *Shina has?

Should we throw them out of the flock so they won’t pollute it?

Should they change their dress sense to at least please the Church?

What would Jesus do?

These are the thoughts that went through my head after I had parted ways with *Shina. I seem to consider both sides, that is the church and fashionistas like *Shina and I’m not sure whose attitude I totally support.

Your view on this is highly appreciated. You could help someone get it right.

 *Shina is used to protect the identity of my friend.

Children's Day? :-(

"After we had rehearsed that verse repeatedly they were singing it like they were intoxicated or something. I was pissed and yes I felt like whipping all of them."

We were supposed to gather for the last rehearsal more like 'touching up', A parent walked up to me and accused me of not allowing her son to participate in the choir, saying he said so. Finding out who her son was I told her he could not join contrary to the claim that he knew the song, because he was not present for the rehearsal and we had changed the song.

Even if we had not changed the song, I wouldn't have allowed him join them. I 
wonder what value system parents are teaching their wards. Or are they still leaving the responsibility to the teachers both in school and church to train their wards morally? Why are some parents so lazy to do what's right and be examples to their children, they don't teach them commitment, discipline and obedience amongst other virtues and they expect them to get good results, to be seen in the front line, and to be praised?!

More than half of them came late to church. We ministered our song, they sang the song like they just heard it for the first time, missed the beats, notes, tempo, just name it. After service and the celebration, I had a word with them and trust me I didn't pat them on the back.

I believe in them, and I won't leave them to lazily allow God's greatness in them rot. I'm going to keep them on their toes.

I so much anticipated for how this day would turn out, but it turned out to be disappointing.

I hope you don't think I'm evil, I just can't settle with their mediocrity.

This is not a poem!

We choose to love

 Love may be a commandment, but we choose to obey

We can’t live or walk in love if we do not choose

We choose to be hurt and to remain hurt

We choose to forgive and remember no more

If we feel forced to love we have not yet made our choice

God is not obliged to love us but he does because he chose

To forgive, forget and love.

Now I understand that for you to live in harmony with even those you love

You have to choose to love.