An Open Mind

It's remarkable how many things we miss out on in life because we have a closed mind about them.

We walk around with our pre-defined workplans for our lives, key milestones highlighted, timelines defined, a narrow contingency plan for backup(not so much a contingency as a lifejacket on a plane - you hope never to use it), responsible parties outlined and duly notified of their responsibilities. We know what we like, don't like, want, don't want, need, dont need, etc. and we don't bother exploring what else is out there if it doesn't fit nicely into what we have painstakingly defined.

It's good to know what you want, what you like, what makes you happy, what makes you sad, what grinds on your nerves, who grinds on your nerves. It's good to know all these, but what room have we left for the unexpected, that one thing we 'thought' we didn't like probably because we never tried it, we thought it was too far out of our reach, too far beneath us, just not interesting ... You just never know the unexpected may surprise you and turn out to be exactly what you NEED.

The only constant thing in life is change. If change is constant then we can not constantly plan, we have to learn to adapt to what changes around us, keep an open mind for what could be, roll with the punches, and just generally experience life as it comes - without a strict workplan.

Free your mind and prepare to be surprised.

Xoxo

Holding Position

I know I have been terribly aweful with blogging, but I have had a tonne on my plate, and it appears I am not as good at multitasking as I thought (something I no doubt got from my dad)

I have done a lot more air travel than I am comfortable with lately, I am naturally quite panicy so spending time in some airbus that I still don't fully understand the physics and mechanics of doesn't really sit so well with me. Flying into MMA on Friday evening, there was a backlog of flights (I am told this is a norm for Abuja -Lagos weekend flights), so my flight along with many others had to assume the 'holding position' as we approached Lagos. For those who do not know, the 'holding position' is an oval space just above the runway where airplanes 'circle' till they are given the go ahead from the control tower to make their final descent and land. Several planes can hold position at different altitudes at the same time. 

As I sat 'holding position' in what I can only describe as a molue bus with wings, eager to just land get my luggage and begin my great weekend in Lagos, it struck me how remarkably similar this 'holding position' was to life. Many times we are trapped in a rut, frustrated by the fact that we can see where we are trying to get to, yet we continue to circle around it, unable to land when we want. 

I never sit at the window seat, but I assume that from this holding position you may be able to see other planes landing on the runway leaving you behind constrained to a metal flying bus sitting next to the profusely sweating bus conductor, your ears popping from the cabin pressure, being shaken from place to place with turbulence (I doubt that at that altitude there is turbulence, but for the sake of this post let's assume that there is), freezing from the low temperatures on board, etc etc. I think I have painted a good enough picture there, the point I am making here is that life too is much like this. While we are weathering our storms, holding our position till finally it is our turn to land, we can see others landing in the place that we too are looking to land, we get discouraged, we sometimes get jealous, angry, faint, agitated. But what we do not know is how long the people landing were holding position before they landed, what kind of turbulence they had to endure, what the conditions were on board their boeing 737, what conditions they are going to meet when they eventually land. We focuson on the fact that they are landing before us. I think we have to trust that whoever (for some it's God, others it's Buddah, some others fate - I won't push my religious doctrines on you) is in our / the control tower knows when is the BEST time for us to land. Our control tower knows what the conditions on ground are, it knows what our Boeing can handle on ground or while holding position, and the control tower will make sure that we land JUST ON TIME.  

My flight 'held position' for about 15 minutes on Friday evening, after much squirming and eye rolling we did land. Much in the same way I trust that we will all leave our holding positions and descend into our desires. 

Xoxo. 

Violence is the Refuge of the Ignorant

I used to tease my mum when she would twist my ears for doing or saying something wrong, I’d say “violence is the refuge of the ignorant”... of course she thought it was rude. Whilst then it was just a JOKE, I believe it best describes what is going on in many boroughs in London, and across the United Kingdom. Ignorance, ignorant parenting, and disrespect for the law as a result of to ignorance to what it takes for good governance. Where there is ignorance, violence becomes the only mode of communication.

As street fires, petrol bombs, disgruntled teens and adults rioting without a cause swept across many areas of the United Kingdom, I did a quick mental analysis of the areas of London that were affected. I admit; it is a vast generalisation to say that most of these areas are home to a lot of the less privileged, less educated people living on benefits, etc, however for the sake of my argument let’s agree that they are. It begs the question is social welfare the best route for a nation.

The riots have been masked as being a protest against particular ethnic groups being picked on and treated wrongly, while that may or may not be the case, the riots have not been solely about that. After watching a series of interviews with the rioters stupid enough to show their face on television, it has become evident that there is no unifying cause, no message that the rioters want us to hear, no burning issue they want the prime ministers attention over. They just took an opportunity to collect what they haven’t worked for, as they always have.

These rioters have enjoyed a mandatory free education that while not as good as a private education is still GOOD, they enjoy free healthcare, uninterrupted power, pastoral care is also free on the NHS, free housing. In addition to all this if they are still unable to secure employment they collect fortnightly (or weekly, I’m not sure) benefits for food, a hoodie from primark(had to pop in a joke there), and for most alcohol, cigarettes, and on the odd week a spiky dog collar for those beasts they carry around London to scare people. This is the model I have always argued that we ought to follow in Nigeria. I thought that it was necessary for us to give out benefits, housing, and everything that a wealthy person can provide for themselves to those who can’t, but I am now being forced to reconsider this.

Whatever comes free is never valued. Perhaps if these rioters understood the importance of hard work to survive, if they hadn’t taken for granted the free education they enjoyed, and actually made the best of it, if they understood that they would be homeless if they didn’t work to pay rent, if they knew they would not have the luxuries of food and clothing that they have without a job perhaps they may have thought twice about taking to the streets to pilfer from a society that provides to them at no cost to themselves.

I will not change my position on the need for a social safety net in Nigeria so quickly, because we do still need to provide at the very least primary and secondary education for all, healthcare, power. However, we also need to consider that there are side effects to “free everything”. Free breeds disrespect, ignorance to the inside workings of a society and its government, and when the ignorance becomes full grown its only refuge is in violence.

Xoxo.

Disclaimer: I am not for a second suggesting all the people in the areas of rioting are uneducated and underproviledged as this is inaccurate, it was merely a generalisation made as food for thought on the issue of welfare, and I mean no offense by it.

Regression

I got a forward email recently with pictures of Lagos back in the day, in the 60’s and 70’s...

...There were pavements, department stores, there was no filth lining the streets. I’ll go beyond the pictures and assume that people could walk across town without fear of armed robbery, being knocked over by a 12 year old okada driver and his passenger who is carrying 3 split unit air conditioners on his head, or fear of their car being engulfed in pot holes large enough to engulf them.

In the 60’s and 70’s we were on a journey somewhere and had we continued along that path, dare I say that we may have far superseded development in many parts of the world. Somewhere along the line our development was derailed by mass consumption of a cocktail of greed, uncontrollable population growth, oil money, and a double shot more greed. The previous generation traded the greater good for personal gain, and at the rate we are going the cocktail is becoming more potent. In years to come we may look back to the two-thousands and say... “wow the good old days”

At some point in history union bank had more sophisticated operations than HSBC (then Midland bank), whilst Midland was still using paper tickets, Union bank had some form of automation. We had clean beaches, attracting tourists from far and near, we had safe roads, and a clean environment. However somewhere along the line we went into regression, we started going ‘up the down staircase’, undid what was done, and drove further into under development. The story department store that once stood on broad street has been replaced with market stalls selling poor quality 2nd hand goods. I never went into Kingsway stores, but I am sure the merchandise in the store was Nigerian – My grandfather had a mini studio in there so by virtue of that I shall assume that other Nigerians sold their merchandise. We swapped home grown goods for made in China, our domestic products were no longer desired, and even if they had been there was no infrastructure to support it. We exchanged a maintenance culture for a cost cutting strategy. It is no longer noble to make an honest living with your skills and talents, it is more expedient to “go into politics”, trade – making a dollar out of 15 cents... And so the regressive spiral continued till we landed ourselves in this black hole, further and further inside a dark under-developed abyss.

A black hole where nothing works, yet we circle around the destruction, destitution and debris of a city once destined for greatness in our luxury cars, wearing luxury clothes, oblivious to the failed state we live in. It begs the question, how far back do we have to go before we actually notice how desperate our situation is. Perhaps till when we have regressed as far back as wearing tiger skin toga’s and sitting in mud caves rubbing sticks together to make fire. We have played politics for too long; we have free styled development for too long; it is about time we put aside the charade and realise that we are regressing at an incredible rate, we need to put a plan in place, we need to manage our population, solve our infrastructure, resuscitate our healthcare system, redefine our government, and most importantly fix our educational system. We can no longer wait for the government to do these things, we have given them 50 years. The private sector must begin to lead change, else in 30 years our generations will be sending emails with pictures of flooded streets, okada crowded bridges, lamenting about the good old days when we had 2 hours of light a month. It is never too late to be the great country that we could’ve been.

Xoxo.

*Cracked Pots*

In the absence of time to frame my own words, I have borrowed some.

"An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water..Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream.'I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.'The old woman smiled, 'Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side?''That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them.'For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.'"

Being quite cerebral I have devoted a lot of my thinking time to cataloguing my many cracks / flaws / what have you. This evening being one of them. So when I got an email with these words it struck a chord. Like myself and the cracked pot we all have flaws, thorns in our flesh, cracks that we try to cement over... We just need to realise that our strengths and our flaws are all working together to produce beautiful flowers (however long it takes the flowers to blossom).

Xoxo.

The Emperors New Clothes

Lagos is the home of EFEEZY. EFEEEZY on crack even. And unfortunately I have to call my own people out here, us Yoruba’s are the worst for this. Our domestic product is “O wa mbe”. The literal translation for none Yoruba speakers is – “It is there” – i.e. That’s where the party’s at, that’s where all the happening people are at, and if you aint there then you just aint hip. This culture of Owambe has become so ingrained in the Nigerian psyche that people will go to any lengths to show that they too are ‘there’, they have arrived. I am not just talking about with parties, with life in general. It has become the norm for Nigerians to be showwwy people. We drive the flashiest cars on bad roads, wear the best clothes to shabby offices, We travel to the best places whilst our country lays in ruins. We always stand out in any crowd.

Recently I was watching an episode of the BBC documentary on Lagos, that followed the day to day life of some quite hard pressed Lagosians. The documentary (in my opinion) aimed to show the resilience of the Lagosian to overcome adversity. That was what I took away from it the first time I watched it. But the second time I watched it a few days ago what struck me was a side story of one of the workers at the dump who was quite literally scrambling for ends meet. However for his daughters 1st birthday he was insistent on throwing a massive birthday bash, and kept going on about how the whole community must respect him for that party. A few weeks back I also heard a story about a lady who lost her husband unexpectedly, he was the bread winner, and his death left the family in a very hard situation, however the wife insisted that she must throw a party far beyond her means and at the expense of the already struggling families’ future.

Whilst I understand the desire to celebrate the life of a child, or the memory of a life purloined by early death, I cannot claim to understand why we as Nigerians must go beyond our means to do so, push out the boat so far we can’t even swim out to reach it. We are so busy tooting our own horns, beating our chests, calling attention to ourselves, name dropping so people recognise us and our catalogue of achievements. We believe that if we shout enough about what we have, what we’ve done, where we’ve been, who we’ve met we will gain more respect. We parade proudly down the streets in our fictional regalia like the proverbial emperor in his new clothes seeking to be praised, acknowledged, accepted and revered.

True achievement, success, wealth (not money), happiness, and joy is silent, it whispers, its HUMBLE, it doesn’t call attention to itself, it is guided by a strong sense of values, it knows that there are many little boy’s that can see the emperors nakedness, and most importantly it does not need praise.

Somewhere along the line we (as Nigerians) have lost our values, we have placed more importance on material things, ostentatious displays, and grand facades. We need to re-route ourselves asap.

Xoxo.

p.s. Congratulations to my Absomaze cousin Dr. Eso on her graduation.

Pieces of String

Life is like a piece of string.

Different lengths, different colours, different textures, some thick, some thin. That’s what we are all like – DIFFERENT. Built to do different things, some lives are longer than others, some are like candles in the wind – blown out far too early, some people are born great, some people achieve greatness, others have greatness thrust upon them, and others are supporters of the great, No one better than the other, everyone unique, and PERFECT for their own purpose.

Imagine wrapping a birthday gift with one of those thick industrial wire chords (a string of sorts). The wrapping paper will get damaged, the gift will no longer be concealed, and not to mention it will be an eye sore. Yet we do this every day. We try to be someone that we are not, achieve the things we were not born to achieve, reach heights that are not our destinies, follow paths that are not our own, beat someone at a race that isn’t ours (I could do a 100 meter sprint quite easily, but if I attempted a marathon I would collapse after the first half mile, only air lift go fit commot me from there). We do these things either in a bid to find happiness or in an attempt to impress someone else. And the result of that is even more severe unhappiness than you started off with.

One can NEVER (and I say in no uncertain terms) be good at what someone else is meant for, you can only ever be good at what YOU are meant to do. Mr. Me Too syndrome is a common Nigerian problem. Kabir just started a business selling boiled cows blood (I saw it on Welcome to Lagos), so you too must start selling boiled blood but instead you will go for ram blood, after all ram is more expensive your profit go pass his own. Your cousins best friend Lovette is making a killing from selling Armenian hair extensions, you too go start your own business, stick on Armenian eyebrows (everybody wants to look like the Kardashians shebi, why stop at their hair). Then you are shocked when you are badly in debt trying to copy somebody else’s’ well thought out idea.

We can’t all be investment bankers, we can’t all be top shot business school graduates, we can’t all be entrepreneurs, we can’t all be musicians, fashion designers, Computer nerds, high flying consultants, great graphic designers, Michelin starred chefs, or even actors... Find what your good at, and work yourself to death getting better at it, and making it succeed. That and only that will make you happy.

Xoxo.

Picture (KeywordPictures)