HOW LAZINESS INSPIRED MY GREATNESS

I felt the pangs of anger as they hit fiercely against my chest as I walked out of the interview room with my head downwards. The interviewing panel had just lambasted me and termed me one of the average Nigerian youths, which means I am lazy, and you might ask “why do I say so?” I say so because they also said straight to my face that the average young person in Nigeria is lazy. I sluggishly used my fingers to slacken my neck-tie as I strolled out of the building feeling very bad with what I just experienced. Amidst my anger, resentment, and bad feelings, I kept asking myself “were they wrong about their assertion?” or “am I really lazy?” I pondered…. I left school four years ago, and when they asked me what I’ve been doing since I left school, I stammered saying “erm…erm….erm…” and like as though the light switch in a dark dungeon just got turned on, I became alive, speaking fluently as I opted to cling unto the usual “there are no jobs” lyrics while narrating my job hunting ordeal to them. They asked me, “what value will this your job hunting experience add to our organization?” The light in the dungeon instantly went off as I stood dumbfounded before the panel with my eyes fixed sternly at the floor. Several times, I have heard people say that young chaps of these days are lazy and I always fought against such assertions, arguing that young chaps “seem” lazy because they lack the opportunity to put their potentials into use, what a lazy argument I had! If only I knew that it was nobody’s responsibility but mine to utilize my potentials. If only I knew that I had to be prepared to maximize the opportunity I pray and wish for. Now, today, I have blown my opportunity to get a job and the interview panel had just called me lazy to my face. What a bitter truth! A truth I have always ran away from, or rather a truth that I have always denied, because it seems like this truth lives in me and I have always neglected it. Now, I am haunted by the truth in the form of memories. I remember gallivanting around cinemas instead of seeking seminars to attend. I remember spending money on recharge cards, blackberry subscription for pinging, clothes, fashion accessories, and every other thing you can think of, except for things that will add value to me and help me to be better prepared for the labour market. I’ve done things that are merely necessary, and left undone the very important things, lazy me! I have always had high hopes to get a good job at which I will excel, make and save some money, settle down with a nice lady, move into a decent apartment, set up an elegant wardrobe, cruise a classy car, and just basically live a tush life with an admirable and enviable swag. I just want to be highly successful, but wait a minute, how on earth was I expecting to attain such feats without the needed corresponding actions that will yield my desired results? I can’t believe this; the interview panel was right about their assertion. I just confirmed it myself, how lazily ambitious I’ve been, lazy me! Mayple Twitter @mapledappa ......I know some of you might be wondering if this really happened to me! Well, it didn't. As a writer, I enjoy the thrill of writing in disguise. I hope you'll find the message meaningful either for yourself or someone you know.My MISSION remains.....inspiring you to greatness!

THE MIRROR OF REGRET

In the last one week, I have been having a lot of thoughts concerning my life and the choices I have made so far, mostly the wrong and negative ones. I engaged in this activity in order to dig up the lessons I must have left unlearnt. These lessons will help guide me more towards the life I desire to live even as I Focus on the future. Please share in my thoughts. May be it will make you realize some things you haven’t realized or it will provoke your own thoughts in some way.

On daily basis we make choices either by our decisions, actions, or inactions, and so it is very important that we consider the pending consequences of our choices in life. Unfortunately, this is where a lot of us start our journey to regrets. We make choices without considering their consequences.

Somehow someway, it is very likely that a lot of us may have messed up at one point in time or the other, but then it becomes very detrimental to not just our future but also to the society when we make ‘messing up’ a way of life through incessant alcoholism, immorality, substance abuse, character flaws, etc. while there are factors which we may point out as being responsible for our ‘messing up’ and as such need help, it is also imperative that we put in effort to live right. We’ve got to live our lives and try to live it right. Our family needs us as much as the world needs us to be positive contributors to its existence.

A couple of hours ago, a good friend of mine shared with me in my inbox a disturbing photo which she saw. It was a photo of her Facebook friend who was having sex with a lady. One will wonder why that friend had to upload it to Facebook in the first place. The first thing that came to my mind was what if someone gets to save the photo and in a few years time the children of this sex partners see it? Or do we not know that anybody can save the pictures we upload and use it for any purpose? What kind of training will this two give to their kids when they become parents? Like I said in one of my updates, there is more to training a child than just providing material things.

I know of a man who is just 37 years old and he already has 13 children. I know a lot of you may be quick to ask what is wrong with that or why didn’t he go for family planning? Well, let me inform you that the children are from five different mothers. So what really matters – family planning or sexual discipline? I sense someone saying what if he has the money to take care of them? It will interest you to know that he is poor and cannot even take good care of the four plus his real wife living in the house with him not to talk of the others. You can see that this man is well on his way to a future of regrets because since he is just 37, there are many more women to meet unless he realizes himself and turns a new leaf.

Let’s look at the story of a young woman who is already having regrets. Early December last year, her husband came to me to get my opinion of something bordering his mind. He has 3 kids with his wife and the 3rd suddenly took ill. After several test it was diagnosed that she has sickle cell anemia. The man is AA while the wife is AS and after several test it was proven that the baby wasn’t her husband’s. She had been in an affair with another man who was AS hence the reason for the daughter being SS. After much talk, Husband says he will forgive her, but he cannot take the responsibility of spending money on another man’s child that is even likely to die. She wishes she could turn back the hands of time to correct her mistake, but then the deed has been done. She has come face-to-face with herself in the Mirror of Regret.
There are a lot of people who want to be like Bill Gates and yet they’ve never attempted to read about him to know how he got there. They would rather be sipping Hennessey from morning till night than thinking of solutions and ideas. They would rather be in night clubs than to be in the Computer Lab or in the garage studying micro chips.

Often I hear young people say they want to get married early in order to avoid pre-marital sex/promiscuity or rather they will stop sexual immorality when they get married. This is what I say to them as well as to myself; if we do not train ourselves on sexual discipline while we are unmarried, we will have the problem of adultery to contend with when we eventually get married.

We are in a struggle or as some will say ‘rat race’ for financial (business & career inclusive), social, political, and even spiritual growth and yet we hardly pay attention to our personal growth. Personal growth isn’t merely capacity building as some may presume. Personal growth is simply the personality we are building and at the end of the day our personality is what reflects to the world the kind of life we actually lived and the success we claim to have achieved. If you become a wealthy man without a remarkable personality, the world may try to get what it can from your wallet and it will still spit on your face. I think Tiger Woods will understand this better after the scandal which I consider a mistake, but of course ‘mistake’ is what we all term our misdeeds and mess-ups, isn’t it? Watch your personality on daily basis my dear friends.

It is no longer a new thing that a lot of things in our society now reek of sex. Parties, company advertisements, product marketing, music, dance steps, fashion, and a lot of social activities are all fast becoming sex-branded. Little wonder why there is also a proliferation in the incidences of STD’s, Abortions/D & C’s, Infertility, loss of libido, watery/low sperm count, sexual abuse and even decrease in masculine sexual prowess (what the muti-men often refers to as ‘inability to go more than one round’) with one’s spouse. The danger of the sins of the flesh is that we try to defend it and refuse doing anything about it until the adverse consequences befalls us. God help us.

My purpose of writing all these is not for anybody to act judgmental towards other persons or to point fingers. This is so because if we think deeper on these things, we will all see a reflection of our own deeds at one corner of the Mirror of Regret. My aim is to make us look into the future of what and who we want to become and consequently begin to be more conscious of the choices we make – more care into how we live our lives.

There may be those who will feel less concerned about these things. To them how they live their lives is strictly their own business and nobody should meddle with their activities, but then I have figured that a time comes when these people come face-to-face with themselves in the Mirror of Regret. They may not express such regrets to those around them, but the reflection of themselves in the Mirror still remains there – hidden regrets! It is with such people of which we may have also been once like, that these two statements has served as a frame for the Mirror of Regret – ‘had I known’ and the second which is actually a question ‘how did I get here in the first place?’

Too often we’ve done almost all the things we weren’t suppose to do and yet we’ve left undone the things we are suppose to do and we are so skilled in making up excuses for our excesses.
We want to soar like eagles and yet we are always in the poultry.
As I end this piece, I will be leaving you with an excerpt from a book by Andy Andrews titled The Traveler’s Gift. He wrote thus:

“Those who absorb and apply this wisdom will rise to greatness and inspire others to the same heights. Those who ignore the power of these scrolls might seem to prosper for a time, but do not be deceived. Their lives will be only brief illusions, and when their time is finished, they will be chained to the Mirror of Regret. There, they will spend eternity examining a reflection of the person they could have become”

You carry in you the SEED OF GREATNESS and what you do with it is also a choice which has a consequence either positive or negative. You still have the choice to make the most of the remaining years of your life. Don’t disappoint yourself.

Dabota's carelessness, Tutu's Stubborness...

Since after I read about how a young boy got saved from an earthquake in Japan because he stubbornly went on a bicycle ride that took him several kilometers away from his city, the idea of writing a story linked to that has been on mind, but I eventually forgot about doing that until I read a short story from a friend's fiance (Uche Anne) that finally inspired me to write this:

Random Musings........

As Dabota parked the car, and stepped out of it to cursorily grab a few items from the supermarket around the corner, she sternly warned her 5year old son, Tutu, not to get out of the car until she gets back.....promising to beat him if he dares step out....

.....almost immediately as his mum walked right through the entrance of the supermarket, Tutu who has gained 'notoriety' for his rebellious tendencies even as a child, also stepped out of the car first ambling around the vicinity and later wandering from the car.....

.....Dabota collapsed just as she was stepping out of the supermarket door and saw a tipper crashing into her car - crushing the locomotive metal and shattering its glasses....

.....Dabota and onlookers screamed for joy when the tad came jumping up & down with arms thrown out in the air....

....seems like Dabota had forgotten her promise to beat Tutu!

There was going to be celebrations....there was going to be a BIG testimony in church with a lot of wining and dining to follow later on at the home of Dabota & Family....

....all for what?

.....Tutu's stubbornness? Hmmm......this life sef!

**From my collection of short stories & inspiring thoughts**

Mayple (c) 2012.

Just as birds...

Just for a moment, imagine a bird deciding to no longer perch on trees simply because the one on which it had its nest was cut down...

...that's what we do when we stop valuing relationships simply because someone or some persons (take note of the word 'some') treated us in a way we didn't like.

Learning Points:

Don't say "that's how all men are" just because a 'few' did you wrong; there are still good guys out there.

Don't tell a customer "if you don't buy, others will" just because the customer was annoying.

Learn from your experiences in relationships that dished hot coal to you as meal, but remember.....

.....you don't burn down your house to get rid of a rat. Meaning not every relationship will work out well, but don't take it out on all other relationships.

Mr. somebody hurt you, not Mr. everybody; so why react to "everybody" like he is "somebody"?

You got my drift?

#YouNeed, INeed, WeNeed - relationships just as the birds need trees for their nests.

**From My Collection of Short Stories & Inspiring Thoughts**

Mayple (C) 2012

Be YOU...

No matter how long you use your finger to submerge a floating cork, it will always pop-up back to the surface once you lift your finger.

Learning Point:

You can't afford to keep living a fake life. Time will reveal how fake you are or how fake your deeds are...

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Henry built a luxury bungalow to his taste, charles built a luxury duplex...

Okechukwu is a secondary school leaver with no university degree but makes over 500k a month from his laundry business; Matthew graduated with a 2.1 and works at an engineering firm for 80k per month...

Blessing has four healthy kids; Victoria has one healthy kid....

From the three scenarios above, how do you tell who is more successful? What forms our yardstick for measuring success?

Learning Point:

Don't bother yourself with who is more successful than you or whom you are more successful than. Just focus on what you have, what you can get, and make the most of it.

#BeYOU

**From My Collection of Short Stories & Inspiring Thoughts**

Mayple (C) 2012

He Wonders!

While he was just a small village boy, Ndube served as an errand boy to the chief priest of his village.....he watched (and helped receive the items) as various villagers who sought the services of the chief priest came with various items such as brooms, padlocks, eggs, handkerchiefs, sand, etc to either appease the deity or to give as a token to the CP.....

.....after a couple of years, Ndube the village boy became a city boy in the crazily amazing city of Lagos because, a relative of his brought him along after a visitation to the village to come learn a trade.....

.....six years rolled by, and Ndube found himself drawn to a Church within his neighbourhood. He first was a sunday-sunday attendee, but later became a devoted worker (just like he was at the village shrine) after he gave His life to Christ....

....the Church once had a programme and members were to bring items to church, the kind he usually helped the chief priest (CP) at the shrine to receive (padlocks, brooms, sand, etc)....

.....as all manner of prayers were going on, Ndube's mind drifted, and he was asking himself several questions:

»How come 'mpintu', the deity of the village shrine, & the God of the Bible require the same items from their worshippers for requests to be granted?

»Is it that superstition and faith have a spiritual connection?

»Could it be that the pastor of his church and the members all have a history of a deity in their villages which their minds are so attached to that they need these items to hold on to before they are confident of God hearing their prayers?

»But pastor said "at the name of Jesus, every knee must bow", so why is the name of Jesus alone not enough?

»Or is it that I'm letting my mind drift too far away?

.......Ndube wonders!

**From my collection of short stories & inspiring thoughts**

Mayple (c) 2012

MAN IN THE LONG BLACK COAT

He is a man who has visited almost every family, neighborhood, community, society, and nation. His history dates back to the very beginning of the history of man. He is present at different parts of the world at the same time. He walks in the shadows of silence.

He tries to inhabit everything possible in order to make it easier to enlarge his coast. In the car we travel in, even within the city, he tries to inhabit it; When we fall ill, he sees it as an opportunity to step in; As natural disasters occur, he is right at the middle of it all – over 200,000 lives gone in Haiti alone; Where people are seeking fun in the form of unprotected sex, he plants his seeds there in the form of STD’s and so many lives have gone that way; infants are not spared in this as some of them are being taken even before they get to see the light of the day – stillbirth; As we travel on the seas, he opens his mouth wide waiting for a capsize to occur so that he can swallow lives; even through the food we put in our mouth, a lot of lives have been lost – food poisoning; in so many forms, far more than I can mention, he has taken millions of lives. He is the invincible man in a long black coat; he is popular called DEATH.

I woke up by 5:00am yesterday 29th January to the news of the demise of my aunt’s husband who has been hospitalized for the past two weeks. The man in a long black coat strolled into my uncle-in-law’s hospital ward and did what he likes doing best at exactly 4:55am. My aunt and her husband live with their daughter and a few relatives in the flat next to ours. He wasn’t able to walk when he fell ill on that fateful 16th day of January 2010, I and some other person were the ones who carried him into the car that was to take him to the hospital but little did I know that my gesture was my ‘goodbye’ to him.

This is not my first experience of death just like many of you, although in my own case I haven’t lost a parent or sibling to know how exactly that feels, but I can imagine what it is like. Now, considering the fact that most of us have experienced grief over the loss of someone close to us, one question always come to mind:

What have we learnt from these experiences?

Living a great life isn’t necessarily about the experiences you’ve had, but about what you’ve done with your experiences no matter how few or much they might have been.

I have seen people that have made money die - so to what end are you striving to make money?
People have died right in the seat of power – to what end do you want to get power by all means?
People have graduated with fantastic results only to die without using those degrees – what are you using your degree for?
People have lost their spouses to ‘the man in the long black coat’ on the very day of their wedding – to what end are you thinking that marriage is all and all?
A few weeks ago, a bank manager in Port Harcourt was shot dead on his way back home from work – what a sad end to a hot job!

Sometimes, it is like sorrow is the fence of happiness – while there is a large compound (joy), we can’t leave or enter that compound without passing through the fence (sorrow).

Here is a statement we all know and have been using: “vanity upon vanity, all is vanity” but a whole lot of us have failed to look intricately into the meaning of the statement. We have failed to realize that we walk in and out of the shadows of silence quite frequently. We have failed to realize that the only time to live our best life is TODAY - for we do not know what tomorrow brings. We use greedy and selfish prayers to shield ourselves from the reality that all the prosperity we seek will still shrivel to irrelevance. Only the prosperity of the soul (Salvation) will be eternal. Unfortunately, prosperity is being spelt ‘covetousness’ just as faith is being spelt ‘anticipation’ by a lot of people who seek for that which is material instead of seeking that which is eternal.

As I watched people come to give their condolence to my bereaved aunt, I saw people who have been so busy that they’ve NEVER come to see this man in all the times he had fell ill – but now that he is dead, the time has been suddenly created. At this point, it no longer matters what they do – even if they choose to buy a golden casket for him, it doesn’t matter because the casket is mere garbage to be dumped six-feet underground. Be there for people when they are alive not when they are dead!

I have grown to understand that all we are striving for is ‘survival’ but the BIG question still remains, what are YOU surviving for? You’ve had the money, the spouse, the kids, the degrees, the hot job, the cars, the houses, the investments and all that, so, what next?

Here is what I think:

Keeping aside materialism (which you will never finish amassing), what else are YOU achieving? This calls for deep thinking dear friends – think deep! What else are YOU achieving? Remember, your biography when you DIE won’t be an account of your material achievements.

My life started changing from the first time I wrote down my biography and saw that what I wrote wasn’t in line with how I was living. If you truly want to add more meaning to your life, take out a few minutes and write out what you want your biography to be like and then compare it with your lifestyle.

As most of us may know, the KISS OF DEATH is one that we will all get someday and we don’t know when exactly it will happen even though we all pray for long life - We are all going to host the man in the long black coat.

Great religious leaders in the Bible and all over the world have all been visited by the man in the long black coat.

My prayer for YOU all: As much as we pray for long life & prosperity, our lives should count on daily basis for as long as the MAN IN THE LONG BLACK COAT is yet to give us a personal visit. Make an impact in your world, Live your best life today!