PhD Holders from UniDisco

Self –appointed cleaner roam to and fro seeking to ‘wipe’ smiles off faces. The smile is a dirty thing to them so armed with training from the University of Discouragement aka UniDisco they hit the road with their GPS with tells them where the merriment is taking place. PhDs (Pull him down) awarded them at UniDisco helps to boast their confidence in their -insertion of san-san into your Garri – mission, for nothing empowers a Naija like a Diploma. The best place to work is on your parade. As you smile with your guards down, these agents of gloom with abilities to conjure up a tropical storm in the Sahara will unleash acid rain on your parade leaving you with bad memories.

The art of Good- times termination will always be practiced. It has its uses. Resistance is always good for growth. Gyms worldwide are founded on the principle of resistance. If everyone agrees with you and your muscles you will never get stronger. These party wreckers will get to you unless you learn how they operate. Forget why they operate. That solves nothing. They are ubiquitous like gravity so just work with them to your advantage and get on with life.

Methods in discouragement

1.       Citation of a historical fact aimed at inducing fear. E.g. while celebrating the purchase of a high performance motor bike or car they throw in a comment about how someone died driving at high speed a few years ago.  Don’t think about what they have said. It’s rain on your parade. Wade through the puddles.

2.       Twisting statistics against you. E.g. On the day you open your new business someone decides to talk about the failure rate of new businesses in the first twelve months.

3.       Be little your talents. This can be done indirectly by being very generous with praise about giants in your field but making no comment about you. Sometimes your best efforts are put down by recalling better efforts from the past.  E.g.  You take someone to a restaurant and they tell you about the amazing restaurant they went to three years ago throughout the meal.

4.       Show you kindness and let you know you will probably fail. They do this as they cannot bear to see you cry when the inevitable happens to the unprepared. They may agree with your attempts at stardom and recall a few names of people who started like you and made it. But in kindness they tell you, ‘with due respect’, that the people who succeeded were all geniuses (and they keep silent about their estimation of your capabilities). You have just been hit by the Peace extinguisher for that seed of doubt eats into your confidence till you find it difficult to sleep.

5.       The direct approach.

a.       You get threatened by a friend who promises to end the relationship if you continue to spend so much time to better yourself

b.      You are told to your face that you wrongly think you are special

c.       You educational needs are exposed and the needed lessons are offered, E.g. ‘I will teach you are lesson for trying to go above your station’ someone might say when you announce your next move.

d.      Geographical experts pretend to come to your aid by vowing to put you in your place, as you have apparently gotten lost due to your wandering ambitious mind climbing the palm tree beyond the last leaf. (I believe I can fly!)

e.      Some cannot be bothered to send down the acid rain. They just aim to kill you and later get around to raining on the funeral.

6.       They remind you of your previous ventures that crashed. Negative memories are recalled quite well. If all our examinations were about painful and shameful incidents from our past, we would all have first Class certificates. No one forgets shame and thinking on past disgraces paralyses all present day cognition and actions.

7.       They remind you of your grandfather, father and relatives’ collective failures.’ No one in this family has ever done this. Why can’t you be humble and accept your lot in life with contentment?’ they ask. (Na who know man na im dey kill man).

8.       They are lost for words and just laugh at you long and hard. Then they tell others who laugh longer and harder till they conclude with your medical diagnosis in disgust; ‘you are going mad mate’. (Ol’ boy, na so craze dey start o).

9.       Remind you of the arduous task ahead. ‘Have you thought about getting a lawyer?’ they ask and when you say you cannot afford a lawyer you see them shaking their head at the ‘fine mess’ you are about to build.

10.   They tell you to trust no one (but them) as the world is wicked. They ask if you have partners and you say yes (who ever does business on his own??). They then question you on your partner till they get to a question you cannot answer. They then shake their head and you feel like a foolish novice too green to do simple background checks.

11.   They make promises, not to invest in your business but to always be there for you if you need them (what they really mean is they would lend you money and a shoulder to cry on after the great inevitable flop).

12.   They maximise your misery by leveraging on their social networks to compound your discouragement. In other words they tell everybody they know about the foolish guy or girl with the foolish dreams and ill thought out plans. Now you risk running into people at parties or in taxis talking about you without knowing that you are the subject of the ridicule.

13.   They tell you what they see. Unfortunately it is always, ‘I don’t see that happening’.

The above are just some of the methods that will be thrown your way as you fight to get the prize. Just think like a prize fighter. If he has no good sparring partners, he actually pays good money to recruit some heavy hitters for he knows listening to the coach and dreaming about victory is not enough. You need opposition in your arena constantly to keep you on your toes. So when next the adverse prognosticators come around and start to throw left jabs of discouragement of right hooks of disillusionment, just know that it is part of your training.  Mohammed Ali we know, Tyson we know but who remembers the names of their sparring partners??

Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

29-9-2014 

Will Power R Us

They say 95% of people have no written down goals or committed a life plan to paper. Of the remaining 5% with a plan only 2.8% of them go on to achieve their goals. Do the Maths; 97.2% of people are blowing in the wind. (Don’t you just hate it when someone tells you to do the maths and then does it before you can engage your brain??).  These surveys we read seem to point to the fact that people have no plans and the ones with plans have no results. Well in Nigeria we have a solution to these survey results. We just say, ‘not my portion’.

They say that birds of a feather hang out on the same telegraph lines. That appears selfish of them for if the 2.8% Club of achievers only talk to each other, how will we learn the secret behind their exclusive success? Now you do not have to believe what I say for it is purely speculation, but let us go on speculating. If really these 2.8% of people exist, I suspect they stop talking or quickly change the subject when an ‘outside’ happens to walk in on them. That means that if your richest friends always talk about Arsenal FC whenever you walk in, you need to be suspicious. They might have modified the conversation to fit those who have been judged to have no definite purpose in life and as soon as you leave for the loo they resume the talks about the $1 Billion loan from the World Bank. They might have judged their dreams too precious and delicate to risk having you pour words of foolishness and doubt on them. So are these true friends? They love you, just the way you are. They know you cannot like them go three days without sleep from meeting to meeting for you have perfected that ‘work- life-sleep’ balance tipped strongly in the direction of your bed. Are these people selfish for hiding their dreams and work ethic from you? (Bearing in mind that someone once called one of them a workaholic for going back to work after Christmas dinner and it hurt them).

Is it fair that Billionaires hang out together and Millionaires eat dinner together? One man once told me of how he went shopping with someone. Their conversation went well till they got to the shops and he began to pick the things his wife had ordered, bags that cost about £500 an item. His friend started complaining that these bags cost more than his salary and it was a waste of money. The shopping trip had to be terminated for there were items on the list that cost £2000 and my friend did not want anyone to curse him secretly. He returned to finalise his shopping alone the next day. He also vowed never to mention work or money with anybody below his level ever again and he also decided to shop alone till the end of his days.

They say that people do not bother with life goals because they fail to achieve even simple New Year resolutions. Six months into the year about 90% of New Year resolutions are all but dead and gone. Why plan when failing will only make you feel bad? People still keep planning though. Even if not bold enough to write dreams down, some still ask, ‘what if?’, and ‘why not?’ Day dreaming about riding in a nice car is a kind of plan. The first steps. People see things, watch adverts and ponder if these could be their reality. These are all the vestiges of plans.

So why are there so few people going from dreams, to written downs goals and finally to ultimate achievement of desired goals?

ANSWER-   Bringing things to past appears to be just plain hard and time consuming.

There are other things which give short term returns on our time and effort. These things are the sweet nothings of life. These are the temptations that provide a ‘sensible’ alternative to a hard existence.

For those who grew up learning that a bird in hand is worth ten in the bush the promise of pleasure a few months down the road seems absurd. What if we don’t live that long? Now is the only time we have truly got after all.

The short term sweet things always give the senses value for money and time. Resisting their alluring call means gratification is delayed. Now delaying gratification is the key to all achievements. It is a choice we all have to make and will power is needed to make a choice for the long term. Buy now pay later versus invest- now and profit later.

We all have the will power to delay gratification and achieve long term gains. For those who do not just pretend you do and marry someone who does.

Will Power R Us.

Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

19-9-2014

The Dead Nigerians Society

Babawilly For President

Every living Nigerian is a potential member of the Dead Nigerians Society. There are no enrolment fees or class barriers to gaining a membership number. Just like a plane on a runway knows it has limited time to get up to speed and take off, every living Nigerian knows he or she would soon run out of that chronological runway called time. Among the society members, the chosen few have their faces on the Naira but for the rest, a tombstone will do. The society grows in numbers daily.

King Afilaka the Third

What an abomination! Why bring such a topic to the royal palace? Are you not aware that my subjects greet me by saying, ‘O King, live forever?’  Anyway, since you have mentioned that word, I will make a few comments.

I think it is really unfair that I would one day depart to the land of my forefathers without any means of taking the Rolls Royce and Bentley with me. That is my one and only quarrel with Eledumare. That I a King will troop out of this world along-side  area boys and even road side mechanics is totally absurd. I even hear that on the other side no one would bow down to greet me in the usual manner in which I have grown accustomed to as a royal father.

It is a lonely trip to the other side.  My beautiful Oloris (wives) who fight to travel abroad with me whenever one of my chiefs makes his private plane and Manhattan mansion available to me, these my pretty darlings, they will all refuse to go on the flight out of this world with me.  They will follow me to the ends of the earth but stop short at my grave side. May I not join that society for many years. Amin.

Mazi Owerri

Bros. Welcome to the palace of Mazi Owerri. Death? That is a business opportunity my friend. I have four mortuaries in this Owerri and I plan to expand but the cost of diesel is crippling the business.I am sure you know we have our generators on round the clock. I also manufacture quality caskets to suit any pocket. Do you know a customer of mine last week had the most expensive outing of their lives in one of my quality casket last week? This was a man who never travelled on holidays because he claimed money was tight. He died and money stopped being tight. I made good money off his ‘befitting burial’. But bros, I cannot stand the funerals of women who died giving birth. And worse still are the funerals for babies. The government should do something about the state of health care for our women and children. Whenever parents come to request caskets for babies I end up crying. Me, Mazi Owerri, crying like a child in the market in front of my boys.  When they bring out money to pay, I tell them to leave it. Me, stingy Mazi Owerri.

Another one that pains me is people in the prime of their lives deported to that dreaded society. Samuel Okwaraji is a case in point. I was at the National Stadium, Lagos in 1987 when he died during a football match. I have not been able to watch a live football match ever since. Even the televised matches can be a problem for me as I jump out of my seat every time a player goes down. The government must do something about the non-existent emergency health care service.  

Sultan of Malali

You southerners have nothing better to do. If your time is up and you go what is the problem? Anyway, as for this society, I do not believe it exists. It is just a made up story by you people.  There is however an ECOWAS society of dead infidels but I have no more comments of that.

Since you have mentioned child members of your fictional society, I would say it is a crying shame that we have a government not concerned about the number of women and babies we lose in child birth. The sole responsibility of government is the provision of health, education and security for the next generation.  When I listen to their political campaigns I hear a lot about salt, rice and money changing hands but very little about their policies.

I will humour you however. If such a society exists and I become privileged to enrol at a ripe old age, on arrival I will walk straight to Awo, Zik and Tafawa Balewa and shake their hands. I respect these men a great deal. Next, I will walk over to Sir Ahmadu Bello and prostrate before him.

Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

14/9/2014

FELA should be a course in Nigerian Universities

Education gives an individual an opportunity to be a contributor in society. It arms the individual with a weapon to wage a good fight. Knowledge provides an individual with fire power for a productive and rewarding life.

A student is educated for service. The teacher digs deep into his student in search of raw materials which can be crafted into something useful. Talents, innate abilities and intellect all start out as a lump of shapeless marble at the start of tuition but soon get hued into a form that is fit for purpose. A purpose to be realised and lived out in society. The student is a product of his society for society is self-preserving. The engineers and soldiers of tomorrow are trained today for today’s teachers and administrators are tomorrow’s aged and frail citizens in need of care. Education is all about ensuring the next generation is equipped to take care of themselves, the old and the coming generation.

It stands to reason that the student at the end of tutelage becomes a product of society, bearing in his mind the cultural norms, cohort wisdom, history and collective aspirations of the people. The teacher imparts this knowledge, in addition to specific technical abilities required for the particular course being studied. Problems arise when cultures from other languages come to play in the class room. Communication flatters and the students begin to mutter under their breath, ‘teacher don’t teach me nonsense’. Imported cultures sometimes lead to a fracture inducing confusion especially when only the teacher has had the privilege of visiting their foreign plantations of knowledge and is stuck with students who have only viewed planes travel overhead but have never flown in one. How pleasant it might have been if knowledge taught was first postulated by pioneers who hail from the land in which the current teaching is taking place. Then knowledge would flow freely with nothing lost in the translation.

At the recently concluded TedxEuston salon (25-6-14) in London, we were introduced to Professor Neil Turok (via a previous Ted talk he had given) who believes that it is possible for the next Albert Eistein to come out of Africa. During his talk however he showed how very little research was coming out of the African continent. That means that most academic departments on the continent will have to cite papers published by non-Africans in their work. The colonial mentality continues for obvious reasons. All things bright, knowledgably beautiful come from abroad.  A very dangerous mind-set to have! So we have teachers with certificates from abroad who might even feel superior to their students. How can the ‘been-to’ divide be overcome in the classroom? Students soon adapt, commit things to memory, regurgitate all on examination day and they get a certificate. But what happens next. The society appears to stagnate for numerous framed certificates do not make a people educated and progressive.

Take William Shakespeare. He writes Hamlet dies and some fellow studies this play and becomes a Professor of Hamlet somewhere in England. Nnamdi flew to England and learns Hamlet and returns back to Aba and soon is Professor of Hamlet. Emeka now gets admission to Eyemba University and studies under Prof Nnamdi and gets a first class degee in Hamlet. At no time during his course does the issue of bad roads, democracy by thugery, electricity black outs come up. Is there any surprise that out talented African parrot who can recite Shakespeare for England is of no use to his community? Education must be relevant.

Now what if Emeka studied foe a degree in Fela Anikulapo-Kuti ? He would have heard about light, water, food, House! He would have understood the issues as he lives through them daily. To be or not to be? Will not be his question. Rather it will a contemplation of ‘solider come solider go’ that will be his food for thought. Solutions will be articulated and on graduation, the discussions in classroom will be implemented in society. A course in Fela would have taught him to have world class aspirations through hours of practice, creativity and sacrifice. Societies march forward on the back of the sacrificial lives of pioneers. Fela indeed sacrificed for his art and for the common man. I haven’t interviewed a family member but I suspect he was so keen to distance himself for the behaviours and mind-set of the Nigerian elite he behaved it seems, like someone who had taken a vow of poverty. I cannot imagine him investing in properties in Ikoyi after releasing a song called Ikoyi blindness. He had too much integrity for that. He lived what he sang and he indeed sang for the common man. That was a huge sacrifice.

Emeka would have also learnt about what Napoleon Hill calls the Master Mind principle. Two or more people working towards a goal. Fela and drummer Tony Allen are a case in point. Working hard and long they were able to produce beautiful sounds. The Kalakuta Republic, where Fela lived before it was burnt down by solders was a commune where creativity thrived. Many great things can be achieved when people live together. That cuts out the time wasted in Lagos traffic for one. Long hours of practice breeds perfection.

This Kalakuta phenomenon was used by Mark Zuckerberg when he and his friends moved into a house and worked for hours building Facebook.  What is creativity but a pot of soup where various ingredients are cooked up together under pressure to produce something beautiful? It never works if the fish or the salt each take breaks from the cooking process. That is Kalakuta. Wake, read, rehearse, write, work, read, rehearse and on and on.  Nobody goes home for the work place is home.  Professor Neil Turok also has a Kalakuta vibe going on in South Africa for he founded AIMS; Africa Institute for Mathematical sciences in South Africa in 2003. Here is a place where clever students and teachers are all under one roof in Muizenberg, Western Cape working hard to produce the next generation of brains to power Africa into the next level.

Emeka need not adapt a new lifestye or sense of morality (for each man must navigate his own morality) to get his diploma in Fela studies but he would need to be willing to roll up his sleeves, know himself, know his society and work long hours to improve that society working in tandem with other similarly minded people.

(On a personal level, how come Fela had a six pack aged over fifty years of age? The secret must be revealed)

Could everybody kindly say Yeah Yeah????

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

Babawilly

28-6-2014

Archaeology for mumus (dummies)

Everyone is born with a silver shovel and a gold plated axe. This is equipment required for a life time of excavations into the terrain of the mind to unearth artefacts of historical value which have long been forgotten. Introducing  the cycle of life; events happens, you bury the event in the sands of time, the memories rot away leaving a skeleton and you construct a kind of tombstone over the cerebral grave and move on.  It is normal for people once in a while to return to the grave to lay flowers or spit, depending on the kind of memory but very few go the full nail yards and do a CSI- Brain type exhumation.

Say you lost a job a few years ago just before Christmas and it was an awful experience since you had not bothered to save for a ‘harmattan day’, your brain does you a big favour by burying the pain deep in your cortex without the dignity of a tombstone. It is now up to you whether or not you erect one.  Going to exhume the memory will meet you with a few problems however. Most of the facts would have rotted away and all you are left with is bits of skeletons and artefacts. With imagination you can reconstruct a whole new scenario which will be lob sided as you might forget to factor in your poor performance on the job, your failure to be polite to customers and colleagues and your silly habit of parking in the slot allocated to your director.  Bias leads to the wrong re writing of history and next thing you are transformed into a would be arsonist out to burn the company headquarters to the ground due to your amateurish venture into archaeology.

Memories fade for good reason. Pain should be forgotten once lessons are learnt. There are many who carry pain for years and still have not picked out any lessons. These are the ones who just keep on digging unpleasant memories from deep within their minds and then show case them in the museum of their faces. One look and you know that the past is a problem for these curators. All the museum pieces get in the way of the appreciation of the present and the visualisation of the future. If anyone attempts to remove any museum piece away, all hell breaks loose for there is no security like the security given to a ‘treasured and mounted’ incident. You could just hear them introduce the pottery of despair. ‘I call this piece- My useless ex-boyfriend’. It is usually a piece so large it fills half the museum.

There is no one without a nasty past. Why analyse this past daily? Why re explore the pain, how it made you feel, the tears, the despair and agony? In the song Exodus Bob Marley sings – we know where we are going, we know where we are from. We live in Babylon, we are going to the promised land.

Everyone with a nasty past needs to constantly plot an exodus. Not a transient flight into the skies with the aid of recreational drugs for you always have to land sooner or letter and the arrival airport tends to be the one from which you took off. Nay, a permanent exodus is called for.

A professional archaeologist seeks to learn from history lessons that can enrich the present generation. The advances of the past help to inspire present day students and helps us understand how things have evolved from generation to generation. A personal study of one’s genealogy can be helpful at times in boosting confident. You might find out that you hail from six generations of successful civil leaders and suddenly find you have a reputation to live up to.

Unfortunately you might find that you are the offspring of a long line of village thieves and vagabonds. Hardly information worth sharing is it?

We are who we are and we know our personal history well. If one must study the past, why not dig into other people’s histories. There are some many biographies out there and in them we can chronicle the struggles people have had with rising to the top despite all kinds of baggage. (Biographies tend to be about people who have made it as no one wishes to get their silver shovel dirty on account of a non-achiever). 

The forensic investigators also dig deep but they do it for information to aid the prosecution of a criminal. They exhume corpses; looking for DNA samples which helps build a case. They need evidence to nail the guilty one.

Some mind archaeologists are really forensic investigators. They look not to understand their histories and adopt changes but rather to fish for someone in the past they can blame for an unhappy past, a miserable present and a totally ‘nothing to look forward to’ future. Is anybody that powerful to influence a life permanently?  Of course such people exist. While working in a prison a few years ago I met a few dangerous guys who convinced me that the world has an ample supply of psychopaths in circulation. However, these are in the minority. These are people who will scar anyone they come into contact with permanently. However we should remember that our skin abounds with scars, wounds though painful at the time which have all healed; some with keloids. The last thing you need to do each morning is going through all your scars.

For every atrocity under the heavens there is a survivor who has written a book. These books help co- sufferers to see the light at the end of the dark hellish tunnel.  Those who have lived through wars and oppressive regimes have a really hard time but surprisingly there are many heroic survivors who make it through to the other side and get on with life.

Bad things happen but good things also happen.

It would be nice for people to use their silver shovels and gold platted axes to seek the pleasant things in the past. The good things, those priceless moments, birthdays, weddings and achievements. One could reconstruct the event in the mind’s eye and even reconstruct bits which have been forgotten. The story line could be embellished a bit and the joy would fit nicely on the museum of our faces which is then viewed by the public. That is how our past can make the world a better place. The good times and the lessons from the bad times are good for all.

Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

8/9/2014

Concealing achievements versus broadcasting accomplishments

Some achievements cannot be hidden. Where do you hide after winning the Nobel Prize? The same applies for natural endowments such as facial beauty. Does a beauty queen walk around in a mask so as not to make others feel less insecure? Achievements draw favourable attention especially in the newspapers and social media. Winning an Oscar is a sure way to gain that kind of instant attention. Unfortunately these big awards are for a microscopic minority despite many people craving attention. The bridge between the attention seekers and attention is usually constructed on the back of good old fashioned boasting. Through boasting people find that they can achieve attention without concrete achievements. For those not given to talking, big watches or cars are able spokesmen.

There is a parable about empty vessels producing the loudest noise. The Forbes rich list is full of people who record no rap records boasting of their wealth. Strange how the major share holders in a luxury brands stay silent while  rappers who buys just one unit of  product raps about it while swinging from the Eiffel Tower. Billionaires tend to stay silent. I suppose they are just too rich to boast about it. On the other hand a few with good credit do go on about what they are wearing and how they are living till you begin to wonder why.

The bottom line is that if you are at peace in your own skin, the boasting stops. The shark would not brag about swimming styles in the sea. If hungry and you are around, you would soon know about the shark swag.  There is really no need for the Cheetah to boast about speed or the lion to boast about strength. These attributes are obvious. These animals wake up and be themselves with aplomb leaving the zoologists to do the talking.  That means that if I see you coming and you need to tell me you are special, despite my eyes being in perfect working order, there must be something wrong.  

Boast perception disorder

Sometimes someone is might just be expressing how they feel and the eavesdroppers diagnose boasting in error. ‘I prefer Emirates first class service to Arik’ says a frequent traveller and some thinks to himself, ‘Hmm. Show off’.

Another says, ‘I prefer MacDonald’s French fries to Burger King’s’ and the eavesdroppers diagnose preference. Everybody has choice, preferences, likes and dislikes. However, expressing them might incur the wrath of the accusers of the brethren. Is the solution to never express likes and dislikes? Perhaps sensitivity is needful. Next time you want to exalt the quality of Jimmy Choo’s autumn collection look around at the faces of your audience to see if they have eaten that week to avoid being cursed.

A one in a life time experience causes a lot of excitement to rage through an individual. Soon he is looking for someone to tell the story to. We all know that excited people repeat themselves. He goes on and on till the audience begins to either get swept away in joy or grumble about the noise. (‘We no go hear word again o! Na him first buy Bentley for Lagos?’)

Real Boasting

Definition- speak too much in praise of oneself, one’s possessions etc. Collin Dictionary. 1995. (To speaking I would add publishing pictures on social media)

The boasters fall into two categories-

1. The entertaining boasters. Some people go out to a nice restaurant and come back with tales so long you wish you were there. They keep you glued to your seats with exaggerated accounts of exquisite cuisine that cost a King’s ransom. While he name drops the stars that happened to be eating at the same time, he never forgets to add the cost of the meal and the size of the tip. Everyone is a winner. You have been entertained and he has had his ego flexed.
2. The tedious boasters. These are people who add no value to your quest for amusement. They tell your plainly that their watch cost £50,000. The need to drop that into the conversation is so desperate that they cannot even wait for the right opportunity to slot in their boast. You might have been talking about a certain premiership striker and they suddenly say, ‘he wore a watch like mine in one of his interviews’.  In your mind, you think, ‘Ehen, so what?’ These are the sad cases. Trying to compensation for the past shame bestowed on them by penury with their shining new glad rags and ornaments. All they need is a comforting shoulder to cry on and a kind reminder that ‘we love you just the way you are’.  Were we not who we were before the designer must have item hit the stores?

Sometimes these individuals are truly gifted and hardworking but just don’t get the acclaim they think they deserve because people don’t take them into their hearts. It might be that their time for acclaim has not yet come or perhaps they are not blessed with charisma. These people are baffled with how other less gifted people seem able to grab the lime light with minimum effort. They thus make it their life’s mission to convince people that they are the one’s truly deserving of fame and attention. The road to boasting starts here. Unfortunately life does no work like that. Charisma is not a debate. You either have it or you don’t.  Elvis had it and he did not need to boast about it. The same goes for Albert Einstein.

Concealing achievements

It is dangerous to hang around people who never like to speak about your achievements and good qualities. People who never tell you anything good about yourself because they kindly never what your head to get too big. (Who made them Phrenologist over you?). You soon learn to be ‘humble’ and to permanently stay put ‘in your place’. A place conceived by others. After a few years of such an existence you would be one of those who at work interviews are unable to talk about your strong points for you fear to appear conceited.

Actively minimising or concealing achievements is not humility. On the other hand it might be cowardice for the fear of people and their petty envies should not determine whether or not you go with your Aston Martin or Toyota to the ball.

Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

4-09-2014

Satisfaction

Call Me was a popular song in the early 80s by the group called SKYY. It goes-‘call me if you need someone to talk to. Satisfaction guaranteed’.

 Don’t you smell a rat? Now if I call you for talking how on earth can you guarantee satisfaction? All you will do is provide a listening ear, abi na anoda thing yu wan provide?

Everybody with something to sell promises satisfaction in today’s world yet satisfaction is still a rare commodity for all the sales men are lairs. You pay and like Mick Jagger and the rolling Stones get no satisfaction, just one more product or service you can do without.

So what is satisfaction? Where does it come from and what does it do to you?  How does one get satisfied with food, drink, love, money, the weather, the holiday, family, the economy, life, career, one’s state of fitness, knowledge, social status and influence, cars, boats and jewellery?? I do not know. Does satisfaction float into your body while in bed or do you go looking for it armed with a net and some bait? One thing a do know a bit about is dissatisfaction. That is easy to understand. A lady who works in a drug store once told me that their main money earner was hair dyes. It seems no one is satisfied with being bestowed with grey hair anymore. Neither are people satisfied with how they look or smell hence the plastic surgical operations, anabolic steroids and perfumes.  For many disappointed with their moods recreational drugs with the promise of a good time abound. If relationships or location generate displeasure, relocation is the word. As for length of hair, dissatisfaction has its remedy.  Unfortunately, satisfaction is always elusive especially when it is intentionally sought for. The harder you seek, the less likely you are to find it. In 1974 the group B.T Express offered what appeared to be sound advice. Their prescription for fulfilment was perseverance and tenacity. Their song went – Do it till you’re satisfied, whatever it is.

 If only it were that easy.

Sometimes I think the dissatisfied affluent people of this world should feel cheated that people in poorer ends of the earth can get satisfaction from air, water and cheap food. Contrasts these two families. The Olufemis and the Thompsons. The Olufemis live in a Lagos ghetto and one evening sent one of the kids to buy soup at a local restaurant while mama made Garri to go with the soup. When food was served on the floor in large plastic trays they gave thanks to God and ate as a family with everyone sitting in a circle around the garri and soup. Papa, mama and five kids all laughed and joked, each commenting on how much pleasure they were deriving from the meal. At the end of their food some of the kids started a dance as music from next door drifted in through the window. They even had the audacity to go tell the neighbour to repeat Skelewu when he changed the track.

The Thompsons had dinner served by servants on the table. They ate in silence, surrounded by the finest things money could buy in their gated community mansion. At the end of the meal each one said good night and retired to their rooms without a smile. Mr and Mrs Thompson and their two kids seemed in a bad mood.

Now these two meals happened on the same evening.  The Thompsons all surfed the internet from their rooms for hours while the Olufemis relied on each other for company and had a lot of laughs in the process.  The Thompsons connected with the world while the Olufemis connected with each other.

Since I have no clue what satisfaction is and no one around me appears to know I decided read the Bible to see what it said about satisfaction.

 Ecclesiastes 6V2 – God gives a man wealth, possessions and honour, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them, and a stranger enjoys them instead. This is meaningless. A grievous evil.

Getting your heart’s desire may not bring satisfaction especially if the ‘chip’ for satisfaction in your brain has been removed. It is possible to accumulate mountains of stuff for the feasting of the eyes but fill empty inside. The heart’s desire is a strange thing. The desire promises so much but never delivers. No different form an advert on TV.  

Those who don’t achieve their heart’s desire are sad and become envious of someone who did. Those who achieve it are sad for they wonder, ‘so, is this all there is?’

Satisfaction is almost impossible to describe but you tend to know when you have got it.

Ecclesiastes 12v 13- Now that all has been heard; here is the summary of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man.

Just do your duty and grab your satisfaction (Whatever satisfaction means). Osheee!!!!

Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

1-9-2014