You don't need a new year, you need discipline

It's that time of year again when people promise themselves and others that they'll turn a new leaf and do this and that differently come the new year. But the sad part is: most of these people have said the same thing for a few years in a row and nothing has changed.

• They didn't write that book they said they would, 
• they're still obese(too lazy to stick to a diet or exercise regularly), 
• they haven't gotten that car and/or house they said they would get. 

The list is practically endless. They go on this endless loop of broken promises and a wasted 52 weeks. Then at the end of the current year, well, you guessed it, they make the same resolution and the cycle continues.

Well, the hard truth is: You need discipline, not a new year or a new month or a new week or even a Monday. Just get your lazy ass up and do it!

Some tips

1. Make a public commitment: When you make a promise to yourself, it's relatively easier to break it than one made to someone else; and it is even harder to break a promise made to more than one person. Making a public commitment is an awesome way to make yourself accountable to persons other than yourself.
2. Work towards the goal with other people: When trying to accomplish something alone, it's easy to get discouraged and lose motivation. But when in a group, the other members can serve as a source of motivation when you're down and vice versa. 
3. Set realistic goals: Don't go saying things like:
   I want to build a company from scratch, I want it to be bigger than Tesla and I want to accomplish this in 1 month. I mean, c'mon, who are we kidding here? 
4. If a goal seems too large, break it into smaller sub-goals: Aiming to loose 100 pounds might seem like a lot; but, aiming to loose 10 pounds a week sounds a lot easier, yh? 
5. State your goals explicitly.

Discipline isn't easy, but, if we want to become better versions of ourselves, we need it. 

Like the post? Feel inspired/motivated? Why not motivate someone else by sharing this post with your friends via the Social Media share buttons below.

Read More

Balancing what you want with what is expected of you

I'm going to make the wild guess that you are an African child; the specificity of the country is not important. So, that being said, I assume you can relate with the "My son is studying *whatever prestigious course*, I'm so proud of him/her"; while the child is like: "mehn, I just want to write music" or something of the sort. This post is going to be the beginning of my personal chronicles regarding how I got to studying Industrial Mathematics while all I want to do is code.
I'm going to be a bit personal sometimes, so, just bear with me. Before we get started, lemme give you some background.

I'm your regular teenage guy who just wants to pursue his dreams and doing so is quite complicated. I'll explain later. Anyways, I have a love for coding (whether it be creating a web app, a website, a native app), but my parents are of the opinion that I should have something more "concrete" first; then I can do whatever I want with my life. So, this is my journey with them and how I have been managing to cope.

The Beginning

It all started when I decided to be a science student; bear in mind that parents were commercial and art students. They were somewhat elated, I could tell; I thought they were genuinely happy for me and maybe they were, but with time it turned out that they had other plans: they wanted me to be a medical doctor. Eish, me? Medical doctor? Nah, that shit wasn't for me. I already had a crush and it was everything computers. I couldn't just cheat on myself. So, the battle began.

Convincing them

Trust me, this wasn't easy. Finding a middle ground felt like an impossible task; but with time, we did come to an understanding. I was to read Chemical Engineering. I wasn't overly happy, but at least I wasn't reading medicine. While doing this, I was writing codes by the side, so it turned out I was cheating on Chemical Engineering... well, I mean, why not? It was basically forced on me.

Balancing both

This is where the pressure began mounting, a lot of times, I would be faced with the choice of either doing assignments or reading about some new framework. So, this is what I did:

• Compartmentalize: Separate your passion from whatever it is you are doing to just please your parents/guardians. When you are composing that song or designing that dress, hide every textbook and note related to academics (except if it is a source of inspiration). When you are doing that 10-page essay, try not to wander; keep your focus till you get it done, then you can go back to your one true love.
• Plan your time: You have to be an awesome time manager if you are going to balance both of these things. There are 24 hours in a day, share them in a way that you have ample time for both your passion and your academics(that is in a case where both are not one and the same thing). This might be the hardest thing to do, but it the most important. 

So, there it is guys, I know it's quite skeletal but, I just needed to vent and my thoughts are not really coherent when I'm venting; so, I hope I have been able to tell my story to an extent. I'll continue in future posts. 

Feel free to tell me what you think in the comments section below.

Read More

LOVE AND ITS RESTRICTIONS

   Seriously, this love thing is tiring. Take it from a girl who has had two heartbreaks, and just summoned the courage to love again.

   Right from when i could understand what a relationship between the opposite sex is, i have been swamped with a lot of do's and don'ts. What a Lady should do and shouldn't do when dating. Why should I wait for him to call me first when its 4pm and i haven't heard from him all day and I am partly dying to hear his voice and partly worried, that something may have gone wrong? They say "that's the way its supposed to be, he is the guy and he should do the calling or most of it". Why can't i buy him a gift at random? They say "If you give him too much gifts, he will know you are into him". But isn't that the point?! To show that I'm into him. Then they say, "don't call him too much o, it will just look like you are begging for attention, don't go cooking for him o, tell him to take you out to an eatery, don't go all 'Miss Independent' on him, let him foot almost all your bills, don't show too much sign of affection, let it be that he is the lucky one to have landed you, you are doing him a favour being his girlfriend."
So much limitations, is love not supposed to come naturally? how can i say i love you and be contemplating whether to call you or not when i know i feel the need to talk to you and have to wait for you to call because "that's the way its supposed to be", why can't i love with the whole of my heart without expressing reservations? Why can't i love without thinking that i am breaking an unwritten girl code and loving too much? Why can't i just be free to love how i want?!

   Then there is this thing with guys, on a second thought, guys and girls alike, "I want someone that will love me for who i am, that will be a friend and a partner, someone who will be so in love with me that i will be the center of his/her universe" they say and there the person is in plain sight giving all the love He/She has to offer and they run away from it all because they think its too good to be true, the case of unrequited love being another story entirely.
I feel like i'm spinning off the topic here, forgive me, *sighs, i'm just, tired, worked up and angry. You know what? I'm still gonna love the way i know how to, giving my all, every inch of me, and i do hope to find someone who will love me as much as i do him before i get totally drained.

Read More

The Man With The Hoe by Edwin Markham

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans 
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, 
The emptiness of ages in his face, 
And on his back the burden of the world. 
Who made him dead to rapture and despair, 
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes. 
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox? 
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw? 
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow? 
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain? 
Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave 
To have dominion over sea and land; 
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power; 
To feel the passion of Eternity? 
Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns 
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep? 
Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf 
There is no shape more terrible than this 
More tongued with censure of the world’s blind greed 
More filled with signs and portents for the soul  
More fraught with menace to the universe. 
What gulfs between him and the seraphim! 
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him 
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades? 
What the long reaches of the peaks of song, 
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose? 
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look; 
Time’s tragedy is in the aching stoop; 
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed, 
Plundered, profaned, and disinherited, 
Cries protest to the Powers that made the world. 
A protest that is also a prophecy.
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, 
Is this the handiwork you give to God, 
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched? 
How will you ever straighten up this shape; 
Touch it again with immortality; 
Give back the upward looking and the light; 
Rebuild in it the music and the dream, 
Make right the immemorial infamies, 
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes? 
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands 
How will the Future reckon with this Man? 
How answer his brute question in that hour 
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores? 
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings  
With those who shaped him to the thing he is  
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world. 
After the silence of the centuries?

Inspired by the painting L’homme à la houe by Jean-François Millet.

Read More

*Untitled

Chima! Chima o! I hear mummy's voice sounding like she is calling from three blocks away, faint and hollow, or is it just me? I drag myself off my bed from the room that has provided a form of solace and comfort from the world beyond. "Chima, you want me to shout my lungs sore abi! I have been calling you, later you will say you didn't hear". I greeted, "why do u look like you were pounded in your sleep? You have been looking like this since you came back from school" Only if she knew. "You will have to sweep round the compound today, you know your sister is  preparing for her jamb and I want her to pass and go to the university like you", she beamed a smile at me. Only if she knew.
    I pick up the longer of the two brooms and began to sweep the compound mechanically, sweeping away the fallen leaves from the guava tree at the front of the house. I remember Father sitting on his favourite rocking chair "Chima my son, you know you are my only son, my joy and my pride, you have to make me proud, you are going to go to the university and become a medical doctor and bring development to this community" he will say often. Now Father is no more and I feel like a failure, life has dealt me a heavy blow, I feel trapped, like my life is being taken away from me in bits, I feel hollow, empty, I feel a heart wrenching pain. Can't anyone see that I am dying? I thought to no one in particular. Tears well up in my eyes. "Men don't cry, we are strong, we do not behave like sissies, we face life head on" Uncle Maxwell said to me during Father's Funeral when he saw a tear drop from my eye.
  5Hours later...
Amara is yet to get back from Jamb Lessons. Mummy is at her shop. The house feels empty just like me. She says she is going to buy me some drugs because she thinks I'm coming down with malaria. Only if she knew.
   My pain seems to have doubled, as memories come rushing back to me, I feel like I'm drowning, flailing helplessly, thoughts come rushing "Depressed Kwa, that is just another story the whites are trying to use to keep us under subjection, black people don't get depressed. Just come to church regularly o", Mrs Chimezie said when I tried to confide in her about my feelings. There will be no next session for me as I am a failure, a disgrace to the family, unworthy of love, how do I tell mummy I have been asked to withdraw from the college, what will she say to her friends when they come asking about "our Doctor" like they will always call me. I need to put myself out of this mystery, someone once said there is peace and quiet on the other side.
  I stagger into mummy's room, lying on her bed is her satchet of Plaquenin, like it's calling on to me. I take all the tablets and toss the empty satchet underneath her bed.
This should be painless, as I pull my blanket properly over myself and allow myself float. At least she will receive sympathy and pity rather than scornful look and sneers from having a failure as a son. This is really peaceful, I say to no one in particular as I drift, surely to the other side.

Read More