CONTENTMENT: a refresher course from my Indomie aboki.

I closed late at work, as usual, with stacks of customers’ complaints left unattended. This is another unfulfilled day in summary. Famished as I was, the only other thing that got my attention was the little boil forcing its way out of my eyelid. It was drizzly, so it wasn’t hard to decide what I was to have for dinner: hot aboki Indomie it is.

He was in the middle of a package when I got there. "Shall I go for a package too, or the total package", I thought.  The last time I went for a total package, I wasted a ton of it. I will rather settle for a bite I can chew. As I peeped to see how far along the sizzling pack on fire is, he caught my gaze and regarded me with a warm salutation “Oga welcome”. The smile was the only other smile I remembered after the few ones I gave when we just opened to customers earlier in the day. Wait, did I even smile at anyone today? Maybe the other day.  I have been gloomy at work of late, zobo-red eye worn around most of the time.

“Which one you want”, he interjected. “Gimme one medium-sized Indomie and two eggs”, I replied. “Tonight, I am not a man”, I thought, “neither am I as hungry to consume and contain the hungry man size package”. He smiled, got a cup and started the ritual.  He is always fun to watch, but not tonight. The smoke, stirred up by the soft weather was drifted everywhere and wouldn’t lemme enjoy how he does his thing. With a pack soaked up in hot water in a cup, he got another cup to mix the eggs and the sauce. While doing all this, he chatted me up about work, asking if it was good. The traditional “fine, thank you” came by reflex. This abokis can be nice sha! Then I remembered another of my bachelor servicing mama-puts. That one go just bone like say somebody die. She no dey even get change. This aboki is far better than mama Sunday, walahi.

Instant noodle is the name; it wasn’t long before I was served.  I paid.  He deserved a tip, but the penny-wise being dwelling inside me inclined me to collect my change. I was now set for where I packed my car. Then the thoughts came: what motivates him? What makes him and keeps him happy at this job? He seems to have it all. I went further to analyse how much interest he could have made on my package. Maybe 50 Naira or a little bit more, or less. If he is able to sell 10 of that, he could have made N500. 50 of that and he would have made N2500? I get tips fatter than this on a very good day! Now that’s crazy. How does he sustain his family? How much does he save? Does he even own a car? Does his hajia wear Brazilian hair? Strings of questions queued in my mind unanswered.

I concluded it is not about how much the money is, it is about been happy with what have, what you do at a point in time. It is not about driving the latest car, or using the latest technology. With time and chance, you can attain whatever you desire, but you gotta be content with what you have now! I mean, if some of us are asked to trade places with him, we’ll just nag ourselves into extinction or something close.  He may as well over-flex his muscles assuming he is a god, if endowed with that “riches you are not content with”. There is always someone who has it better and someone who has it worse. Some of my readers out there are already earning the armed-robber salary, so to say, and we are never contented. Don’t get me wrong, I am not clamouring for you to be complacent, or that you should not aspire for greater heights, but, hey, while you are doing that, something tells me you ought to live a healthy life. Be satisfied with what you’ve already got. A bird in hand, whether dead or alive, is worth more than ten thousands in the bush (except, of course, you own a poultry farm somewhere in the bush). Being content is a neurophysiological experience, whatever that means. *smiles*

Uncle Lao Tzu was at our place the other day and said “be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.  When you realise there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”  You don’t need more to be thankful, you just need to be more thankful. I have learnt a new lesson, and I will be applying it a long time. The meal, by the way, was good as always, you need to try it out sometimes too.

Great day awaits you!

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What if all you have is 40 years?

Do the math. Let’s say you are 20yrs old already! Then you have a whooping 20 years more. In football, one will say you are at the “half time” period of your life. From your perspective, life is just getting started. You have time; you can always do whatever you want to whenever you deem fit. You can always take it easy, no rushing. No pressure. No qualms.  In reality, you are half way done. Life is like a Blackberry battery, better still, a Nokia battery. As soon as you disconnect the charger, it starts discharging, running low and low, depending on the activities, until it is flat and out.  Of course, some maximize this battery life while available: quality phone calls, presentations, publishing, sharing, ads, quick searches and look-ups, what have you.  Others do other things which just make the phone go hot!

To have a goal is good, to pursue it is better, and to do so on time is the best.  You cannot continue to push tasks off to the last possible minutes. If you think it is stressful to do it now, wait till when you settle to do it later and find out how much pressure has mounted. Executing your idea may seem overwhelming and stressful, pushing it forward only compounds you woe.  Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow. The old mantra says “Don’t leave for tomorrow what you can do today”. I’ll rather kill today’s trouble than push it forward, and add it up to tomorrow’s.  If it is worth the effort, then you shouldn’t wait.

The gospel truth is, the longer you procrastinate, the lower your self esteem gets. The sense of fulfillment is not there. Self-doubt creeps in at will. The odds are higher that you may not get to do what you ought to do as you allow time tick by. Start! Dive in first. Something tells me the farther you go, the more committed you’ll get. Come to think of it, I procrastinated writing this blog. Occasionally I just drifted away. I even left it completely for Wordosaur the other time. See! The easy things are always really not worth it after all.

Quick appraisal: What were the targets you set for yourself, say, 1^st of January this year? How many have you seen through? Did you truly pursue them?  Some of them do not take 8 months to achieve, remember? You’ve still got more than enough time before the year runs out….”maybe not”.

You only live once. Sad enough, most people utter this as a defense for the reckless life they lead; the easy escape route. It is the perfect excuse to waste life.  You only live once, but the impact you have could be eternal. Solutions you bring may be unquantifiable. Time is of essence.  Time is a resource, manage it. Idle time seems to pass more slowly than occupied time. In reality the time ticks seconds after seconds. It is our perception of time that differs.

Do something, it’s almost midnight.

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Don’t fold your arms.

Who invented electricity?  

That was the question that came to mind instantly.  I already know who invented Facebook. Mark Elliot Zuckerberg, right? Yippee!!! Brilliant me! I sometimes stare hard and long at the pictures of that guy. 29 years old. He looks as normal…and as distracted as the rest of us. Jeez! looks can be deceiving.  So I turned to Google, my second best companion, to check out who really brought about electricity.  Different names started popping up: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Michael Faraday, Allessandro Volta, William Gilbert and soooo many others. I was bent on knowing the friend and the foes. I just needed a name. How on earth will someone invent something that just shocked the hell out of me earlier in the day?

The first link I clicked was reluctant to open, thanks to MTN Nigeria. Then another thought dropped into my mind: what if these inventors folded their arms? What would we have got? My wild imagination resumed full time and I could see a 10-million capacity stadium  filled to the brim with Arsenal and Aston Villa fans, all holding binoculars and telescopes as long as, if not longer than, the Vuvuzela, trying to catch a glimpse of the proceedings on the pitch. It’s either you watch the game live or you get nothing.  I wouldn’t even be able to recharge my phone or laptop – that is if the ones who brought about the invention of these gadgets didn’t fold their arms too.

I imagine our Facebook inventor folding his arms, graduation with honors, being employed by, say, Google? He will not just be on his supposed competitor’s payroll, Maybe we would all still be on Hi5 by now.  It also means there wouldn’t even have been internet. No Google? No yahoo? (maybe naija woulda been better off with the riddance of yahoo bois and girls tho’), no automobiles and aircrafts? It is hard to imagine, but I think all we would have been left with are lush green attires, manna from heaven, and we would have continued to be fruitful and multiply. 

Evidences of engaged hands abound everywhere. Just look around you. From penicillin to the food stacked up in your cabinet. The boogie-boogie you rock and those cute shirts that make you look fly. Imagine a world without cassava bread (laughs), preservatives, anesthetics and you’ll know what I’m talking about. We can go on and on. The list is inexhaustible.

    

We don’t know what we are missing until we have it.There are a lot of thing the Milky Way still deserves. Don’t fold your arm, who knows what you’ve got in there? Maybe you will be the one to bring about the kind of electricity that doesn’t shock!

Do something!

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