Your Personality comes out

“O-pin the flad-gates” Sonnie Badu sang “..in aban-dance..” He continued. Being from where I’m from I didn’t need him to sing the Ghanaian National Anthem to know he was from Ghana though he was singing in a Nigerian language. I’ve also seen a few people claim in church they serve the ‘I ham that I ham’ and know they are very likely from the Western part of Nigeria though I wasn’t told. Get it? Your personality shines through. Faking it is useless.

The bible says:

“…and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.”

Acts 4:13

What you have inside or what comes to you naturally cannot be hidden permanently. If you are good, people will notice. If you are not good, people will notice. If you are evil, it will show. If you are humble, it will be obvious. Time and again, you come across a person who complains about the way he or she is being treated though they put their best foot forward when dealing with people around them and it doesn’t take long to find out people actually treat them based on what their real personalities are. Rather than work on changing their personality and becoming better people, human beings think it’s easier to put on acts. You can pretend on a date. You might pull off pretence in an interview. In daily interactions however, you can’t fool human beings. If humans are a reflection of God, then we are spiritual beings with a bit of discernment as part of our make-up. We eventually see through each other.

Why go to church and try to fit in when you clearly know you don’t fit in? Do you know how ridiculous a 50-year-old African woman looks trying to blend in with a group of teenage African-American girls? Be yourself. If your self is not good enough, work on a better you.

Word of advice, pray to God to fix you and whatever is wrong with you. Quit the acting dear. You’re making a fool of yourself and most importantly you are making yourself very uncomfortable with no reward in sight. You’ll be surprised at how easier things will be from there. 

Marriage: Still a sane institution?

There seems to be, in many cases a preconceived idea of what a successful life is meant to be. In crèche as a toddler. Secondary school as a teenager. College in the early twenties. Recently married in mid-thirties. On and on it goes. While the cast is not bad, should being moulded by a different cast always be categorized as failure?

In a sane environment, by far, the most important call anyone has to make is if to get married and then to who. The emphasis in that statement however is the word sane. How sane is the world we live in now? A good percentage of marriages are still carried out in a church or at least have a Christian marriage but how many people actually understand and follow the code of ethics by which they are going into this? A woman so morally depraved that she’s actually famous for sex tapes goes to a church to get married and walks out of the marriage at will only to go again and still have a ‘sacred’ church union in the presence of ‘God and man’. Seriously? Come on, for the sake of Rapunzel’s long hair, which God are you talking about? It’s ok to get married in His presence but not keep Him in the Home? It’s OK to declare your love in His house but then not follow His laid down regulations for how the union should work? Where is the sacredness in marriage gone?

For Better or For Worse

Do people actually know it’s more noble to stay single than make a mockery of the marital process? It’s economically stupid. I once met a guy who lost half a million euro to a divorce case (and his wife is not burning in hell - unfair). It’s emotionally draining. The heartbreak is horrible. It can be physically demanding in case of domestic abuse victims. Why would anyone put himself or herself through all these and dare I say maybe even incur God’s wrath (yeah, the same one you married in His presence) in the process when they could have just kept to themselves.

Marriage is an amazingly beautiful thing if it is right. However this continual defying of the institution does no one any good except divorce lawyers. Any, I repeat any situation where only the lawyers and the lawyers alone come out smiling is not where anyone of us wants to be (No offense to lawyers).

Young People, Tomorrow Matters.

Growing up, we spoke only Yoruba (our Nigerian language) at home. If Daddy or Mummy ever spoke English to you, you knew you were in trouble. Usually big trouble. Sometimes it wasn't trouble but it was always something serious. "Can you do me a favour" Mum would say. And you just knew she was going to ask you to clean out all the neighbour's cobwebs or go hunting for a Lions head in the bush. For casual stuff, it was the usual "Jide, bo si bi" (Jide come here).

One of such occasions which I still clearly remember was my Mum quoting an entire Chinua Achebe saying to me. I remember where I was and that she was sitting towards my left. It was on one of the many times those teachers had reported me that I wasn't pulling weight enough in school (they were lying by the way, those spawn-of-satan teachers). "Jide" she started "Enjoyment can wait, do not be in a hurry to get yourself into the pleasures of this life like the young antelope who dances itself lame when the main dance is yet to start". I, like every teenager on this side of eternity always ignored them long be-a-good-boy speeches but I did not forget that one. It stayed with me and even now, around 15 years later, I still remember clearly.

Young folks these days sometimes look to me like they are on a secret competition of who comes up with the dumbest thing to do. It feels like we're locked in a wait for award for the ultimate teenage idiot to be given out by lucifer himself when you consider what these guys are up to. Naked selfies. Planking on highways. Beer ping-pong. Truth or dare. And other jack-ass type stunts. Someone even came up with YOLO and the thing caught on like it's some revolutionary idea. And it gets you thinking "Did you think we had two lives?" It’s a question of time before I think someone will come up with the kiss-the-Lion challenge or the arm-wrestle-a-polar-bear challenge.

There is a lot of living to do folks. A whole lot. A big whole lot. For every young person out there, except you die prematurely which we all pray and/or hope against, you have more ahead of you than what you've lived so far.

Calm down. Pray. Follow God. And use your brain a lot. Forgive yourself of your misdeeds. Tomorrow exists and it's way more important than you think. Prepare for it today or it would bring more pain than you bargained for.

Why fill yourself up on the appetizer when the main course and dessert are still yet to be served?

If it’s my last day on earth..

If it’s my last day on earth

What would I have left behind

A trail of broken hearts

Or a mass of lifted spirits

If it’s my last day on earth

Would my loved ones know I cared

Would all my love for them have been expressed

Would they be filled with warm memoires of me

If it’s my last day on earth

What would my legacy be

What would I be remembered for

What would come to mind when I’m thought of

If it’s my last day on earth

Would I have taken all opportunities that came my way

Would I have a lot to do ‘tomorrow’

A tomorrow that is now never to come

If it’s my last day on earth

Would I evoke tears of joy or sorrow

Would I have pleased the wrong people

And hurt those who truly mattered

If it’s my last day on earth

Would I still have any sorry to say

Would I be at peace with great and small

Would I have any beef to explain on the other side

If it’s my last day on earth

And I step across to eternity

Would I go right or left

Where would I call my eternal home?

If it’s my last day on earth

I very much doubt I’d have seen it coming

But would I have stayed prepared

For my most important journey of all?