Backwardness Is An Aberration: A State of the Mind

As I was driving through the old country side of Ondo, to Ife then to Ibadan, I couldn't help but notice how good we are at copying ideas, beliefs, lifestyles etc., with initial enthusiasm and a bit of gragra. Then after copying it, we often tend to retrogress worst than how the original ideas were conveyed, marketed, applied and improved upon. 

From selling chicken, to interior design, lumber yards, coal manufacturing and sale, there's no significant improvement from the way it was a 1,000 years ago as we drive through these parts. And when improvements are made, it is often a good copycat, a MOR rather than something fantastic, exciting and innovative. 

You'll observe how pervasive this kind of disposition is in the kind of stultifying civil service we have in Nigeria, sinecure politicians and politics we practice and the dilettante system of education we run resulting in a society whose mind, spirit and body does not know that Liberty means upping one's game by evolving even if it's at one's pace. 

To conquer the mind disease of backwardness, Africans, Nigerians need to accept their conscious and unconscious contribution to their states of affairs. EVOLUTION IS A DELIBERATE CHOICE. Nobody is handed that.

When Darwin said only the strong survives, that is exactly how life is. To be strong is not about physical strength. It is more about how badly YOU WANT TO SURVIVE AND THRIVE.

All evolution is apparent and actual. You feel it. You see it. You know it. For African, this is a COLLECTIVE LEAP.

Why Do You Get Up Every Morning?

When you ask Nigerians that question be ready to hear answers like this:

 - I believe there's a reason (ask them to specify, the answer is usually vague, nothing concrete)
 - I am healthy
 - I am favoured
 - I'm Alive

Now try asking this question: Why Do You Go To Work?

The general response is:
- Man must wack
- I need the pay
- Man has to survive
- Because I have a job
- Because I don't want to lose my job
- I need the extra income
- If I don't go, there are many who are envious to get my job
- Well, it's the only job I have so I have to go

What doesn't strike many at once is that most people ought to go to work because they're part of something. Many think the pay check justify the reason to get up. But after the pay check then what?

You have to have a purpose, a mission or vision that needs to be accomplished.
You have to be part of a difference in some way, show it.
Let people know how much you contribute to life not to impress the but because you have somethng to offer as every human being should.
YOU HAVE TO STAND FOR SOMETHING.

If you're in a work that feels like a job rather than something you're proud to be in, boredom sets in, unproductivity becomes your mantra, and the idle mind seeks fun where there isn't real value. Life then becomes a rut. Surely this is not how to live, you'll agree.

What will you do today to make every waking moment of your life and every desire to keep living fresh and rewarding?

Get out that door, stand for something and make that something come to pass. That is what a leader does. You are one. Be One.

The Musings of An Observer

Ojil sat on the veranda sipping hot tea, the harmattan breeze rustling through dried leaves, openings and crevices in windows and roof of houses.

He watched the crowd seem to gorge out from the T-junction: different crowds, all belonging to one religion or the other. The T-Junction leads to three key streets, each of which houses no less then five different Christian religious bodied, and two Mosques, all professing "Theirs as the only way".

And just then he realised that the thing with most religion is their desire and concept of owning you. Religion wants the whole of you, not parts. Religion insists you're "born into it", "raised in it" hence your allegiance is to IT. Not to yourself or family but to IT!

The more he thought about it, it became crystal clear that whatever religion you grow up in tends to mold you because it IMMERSES ITSELF INTO YOU. You become the religion and the religion is you. Hence you hear someone say "I'm Catholic", "no I'm Muslim", "no I'm White Garment Church", no "I'm Pentecostal!"and on and on.

Ojil sat up straight instantly as the thought burned brightly in his mind: RELIGIONS' ONLY GOAL IS TO OWN YOU.

Else why can't one claim multiple faiths? Why can't one associate with all and take only the best in all while still being part of each? More with some or less with others being of no consequence?

Today you look at the various religion in the world and you'd see how far gone from its original premise its current adherents are to the original axioms that once guided them, none without exception.

He sat back on his chair and began to laugh. Laughing because he knew that this was not something to fight. But something to simply understand for what it is.

He got up and went inside, ready to discover another secret musing!