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14 Nov 08 

These are tough times and indeed all the stories we read and hear nowadays point in that direction. We have been told that it is the worst global financial crisis since 1930 and that companies are liquidating, there is credit crunch, mortgage failure is looming and the stocks are crashing world wide. You really may be wondering if we are already in the Great Global Millennial Depression. I am about to add to your fear because I am not going to tell you that the depression is not real. In fact, in life journeys, we face similar depressions every time.

 Writing about tough times reminds me of Dr Robert Schuller whose book, Tough Times never last, but Tough People do’ has remained an evergreen best seller in Positive Thinking World. All Dr Schuller’s book have eye-catching titles which are capable of softening any tough situation. Many of his books have changed many depression and recession to rejuvenation and jubilation. Many of the words in his books are also life-changing quotations that if imbibed have the potentials of changing ways to handle tough times. 

 Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient.  The storm will pass. The spring will come.

For us to grow in tough times then there are things we need to do.  We should not listen to ‘tale carriers’ who in my area we call amebos. They bring tales of doom and expect to create fears in you that all is not well. Tell them ‘It is well.’ I never liked watching CNN because it tells negative stories or bad things happening all over the world, especially in Africa. He tells us stories of hungers, of poverties of people living below $120.00 dollars a day, about Katrina, tsunami and military men molesting civilians. When good things happen in Africa, CNN seldom reports. But CNN thrives by selling bad news and the company continues to grow from strength to strength.

 There is always a silver lining in every cloud. A proverb in my language says komai nisa n dere, geri sai waye. In other words, no matter how long the night is prolonged, there will surely be the dawn of a new day. To survive in a turbulent period we need to be tough and indeed, very tough. A corollary to this last statement is that we need to train ourselves to be tough before the tough times come. If an athlete does not practice before the tough game, he is not likely to come up top. In order to come up top in tough times we need to prepare rough paths for ourselves.

 We are all growing up and so it is not late to start preparing to practice the rough paths of life in case we need this to face tough times. Ask those who climb to the top of any mountain; the path is very rough. Ask the military and they will remind you that the more we sweat in peace time the less we bleed in war. This message is particularly important for the parents: teach the children to grow up expecting tough times by making their paths rough sometimes. This is because it is tough people that survive in tough times but it is their rough past and paths that have given them the right attitude to survive. Grow up tough!

Akintomide

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DIFFERENT STROKES

12 Nov 08 

The World, just about one week ago, woke up to witness the election of a Black man as the president of the United States. Since then, even the opposition have not been left out in applauding the uniqueness of this election and its unifying effect of the World.  We congratulate Barack Obama. But the dream of Martin Luther King Jnr is still far from being fulfilled until all races and creeds  wake up to embrace equality of opportunities which Obama's election demonstrates. We salute the Americans for standing up for change.

In Nigeria, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, that indefatigable Labour Union leader, reclaimed his mandate by being approved as the Governor of Edo State. The epoch making occasion for his swearing in on Wednesday 12 Nov 08 is being seen in Nigeria as another change. We salute the judiciary of Nigeria which for long has identified with the aspirations of Nigeria by supporting democracy.

These are different strokes but the message is the same.  The people are yearning for good governance and will do all within their power to get it. The world is becoming smaller and smaller and so change is imminent. All must be prepared for change as nothing is more permanent than change.

Akintomide

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THIS IS IJEGUN

Where the road is marshy

Where the efforts went

Built on sweat and hope

Ijegun

 

Where light does not come

Where we hope to live

Where we plan to stay

And Be happy

 

Ijegun the Pipeline Victim

The signs of our decadence

The evidence of our decaying planning

But still people stay with hope

 

The road to Ijegun

Somehow made but with no plans

Many stay for want of better place

Hoping that a City would soon emerge

 

Ijegun story may be like Aguda

Ijegun story may be like Allen

Ijegun story may be like Maroko

But where lies its salvation

 

Ijegun so close to Festac

Ijegun so close to Isolo Estate

Ijegun so close to Igando

But far and far from them

 

The attention drawn to Ijegun Road

Should continue despite the explosion

But who will save Ijegun

From these despair of its roads

 

Ijegun is an emerging city

Based on trust and faith

Civil servants, bankers and traders

Stay put there and hope for the best

 

When will the best come?

When will the State wake up?

When will Ijegun become the Chatham?

Of our own dear native land

 

But there are many Ijeguns

Scattered along our cities

Who will be the saviour?

Of all our Ijeguns

 

What makes an Ijegun a Chatham?

The People

Give them a good road

And a good living condition

 

Our leaders don’t stay at Ijegun

So they don’t know where the shoes pinch

But they will come back to Ijegun

When it is time to count the votes

 

Use your weapons, people of Ijegun

Do not waste your votes

Only leaders who make your roads

Deserve to take your votes

 

First Produced Jul 14. Reproduced for the ABIYE TOWER BLOG on 11 Nov 08.

This poem was almost going to extinct after I de-blogged the original web where it was hosted. A friend alerted me to the poem which came to me ordinarily while lamenting the ineptitude of our Governments to address basic issues that could have multiplier effects on national development.  Ijegun is an example of what government should do and they are not doing. Governments elsewhere are alive to their responsibilities and why not ours? We pray the days come when every person in authority would be made accountable not only for his or her actions but also inactions. This poem  IJEGUN  is rededicated to those who have read this poem earlier and made this reproduction possible.

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THRIVING AND NOT JUST SURVIVING

No comment - Post a comment  Jul 30

Dear Bloggers.  You would have noticed a slight change in the masthead of this blog. Again, there is need for explanation. What is in a name you may say. What is the difference between a surviving mentality and a thriving mentality? Let us first take a look at the key word for today’s piece which of course has been adopted as part of our mast head - the word thrive.

The word thrive is an intransitive verb which according to the new Merriam-Webster Dictionary means

1 : to grow vigorously : flourish 2 : to gain in wealth or possessions : prosper 3 : to progress toward or realize a goal despite or because of circumstances.

I have gone through the web to bring you some inspirations on a lady, who at age 108, spent the last parts of her life thriving by putting down her past experiences in writing through blogs.  Please read through the next narration on her by another blogger.  If she could do this at age 108, then every one of us has the inner drive to keep thriving and not just surviving..

I was reading the tit-bit news today and came across a Bitter Sweet story. I think everyone has potential regardless of their age. At 80 years old your potential isn’t going to lead you to be the fastest runner in the world, but you could still be able to run.
That is actually inspiring to me. There is hope and you shouldn’t give up. I have watched people get old and you do see physical changes that creep up on them so slowly but it’s their mental age that is a real concern. If they think they are old you will see them acting like a 46 year old one day and the next day they will be OLD.
In Australian news

‘World’s oldest blogger’ dies in Australia. You might be wondering how old was the oldest blogger. Olive Riley was 108 years old and she was blogging up until a couple weeks before she passed away. Olive Riley passed away July 12. Since Feb. of last year Olive Riley had posted 70 plus entries on her blog. She shared her experiences and thoughts of life through the 20th century.

June 26th was her final post and it showed how she was enjoying the simple things in life like a happy song. We should all be so lucky as to enjoy simple pleasures. Her final post said she had been in the nursing home for more than a week and she had been in bed most of the time.

Olive Riley went on to write that she couldn’t shake a bad cough and was still feeling weak. She said that she sang a happy song with a professional singer that was there to visit her mother. Olive Riley said it was “quite a concert” and she sings a happy song every day and was happy to share one with the singer and the nurses on the floor.

I hope we all can enjoy a long life and somehow still be happy in the end. It’s amazing that this lady, Olive Riley was 108 years old and could still communicate as well as she did. Olive Riley’s great grandson, Darren Stone said she enjoyed talking with people from America and Russia by the internet. He said the communications kept her mind fresh according to AFP news ‘World’s oldest blogger’ dies in Australia.

Jul 14

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To All Those Who Wish to Live Every Day!

Welcome to this blog which I have christened ‘Living Every Day’. I have no idea of what I am going to be telling you on the blog. All I can tell you is that I feel inspired by those who have written beautiful blog pages that have contributed immensely to making people live every day of their lives through meditation, positive thinking and right attitude. Sail with me!

Akintomide

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EATING YOUR CAKE AND HAVING IT

Jul 27

The phrase of today’s piece is a very popular one. It was first recorded in 1546 and was captured as “wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?”.  In essence, it alluded to the fact that it is rather impossible to eat one’s cake and have it afterwards. But read this.   A comedian by name George Calin once critiqued this idiom by asking, When people say, ‘Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too.’ What good is a cake you can’t eat? What should I eat, someone else’s cake instead?”. Later on, there are attempts to make the idiom obsolete as people really write on the topic Ýou can eat your cake and have it too’.  This perhaps is the reason we are writing this piece.

From the nutritional point of view,

Julian Barnes writes: “You can have your cake and eat it too - the only trouble is, you get fat.” This, of course, is putting the it mildly in comic sense.  Following the spirit and reasoning of this idiom, it is truly possible to eat your cake and have it. In essence, it is possible to have it right in 2 directions when others are only having it right in one. Please quote me on this. A friend once gave own version of the consequences of eating one’s cake and having it in the negative sense. While accepting the reasoning and logic, I want to correct here that it is not always true that the consequences of such action are of negative sense. We shall see later.

What, in essence, does the idiom imply? Basically, the idiom is saying sometimes you have to make a decision and live with the consequences. To “eat your cake and have it too” (the original expression) means you want it both ways. If you eat your cake, you no longer have your cake, because (duh) you already ate it. Hope it tasted good.  This, in my opinion, is good logic provided it is viewed from logic. But all issues are not logical and in the real sense, there are things that are not mathematical in their explanations. It is presumed that every body perseveres in its state of motion or rest except acted upon by an external force. This is basic physics from Newton’s perspective.  But again, things that disturb the rest of a body or make that body to move may not be easily understood.  Therefore, application of Newtonian Law may not be applied willy-nilly to situations that are not physical in nature.

Let us take the case of two individuals X and Y who relate well and would have wanted to get married but could not for one reason or the other. Each went his and her ways only to be reunited some years back and stick to each other again.  This could be a case of eating your cake and having it too. Is nt it?  But the truth is that it is not except Mr X and Mrs Y are saying there new relationship (new cake) is the same as the old relationship (old cake) they have lost. The end result of the first relationship was ‘marriage’. Except X and Y are thinking of divorce in their individual situation, this particular idiom is really not applicable.

It is, of course, necessary to make some clarifications here. Love is the rationale for a sustainable marital relationship and therefore Mr X and Y could easily confuse the affection they have for each other as been prejudicial or inimical to their marital vows.  This is a puzzle. The love between sisters exist despite the fact that brothers and sisters eventually go out to get married.  The point being made here is that it is possible to love, in a special way, people you have affinity for, communicate with effectively, share common aspiration and capable of extension of frontier of friendship without really jeopardizing your settled marital order. This is a controversial issue and I think people who befriend opposite sex plainly and deeply too would have realized what I am saying.

If I see an intimate friend of my spouse of the same sex in the same room, nothing is wrong.  The situation is different if the intimate friends are of opposite genders. The society accepts the former and frowns at the latter because it was presumed that people of the same gender do not intermingle romantically. This piece is advising that we all should get out of the mind set that a man can not be close to a woman except for sexual reason.  In other words, men and women should feel free to have relationships that are very dear to their hearts and keep by the rule. In that way, they can enjoy mutually beneficial friendship while keeping healthy marital relationship.

Akintomide

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 Updated on
20 Nov 08

Visitor's No

 

Barack Obama became the first Black man to win the Presidential election in United States. Has he fulfilled the dream of Martin Luther King Jnr? Time will tell.

Comrade Adams Oshiomhole claimed his mandate on Tue 11 Nov 08 as the Governor of Edo State Nigeria. A different stroke you may say. Is this a confirmation of a consolidated democracy.. Time will tell.